The Blues Are Still Blue
by lachambre11
Summary: One blue strip, negative. Two blue strips, positive. Hermione’s hopes and dreams were depending on strips. Ironically, she had always thought of herself as a dot kind of gal.
1. Blue For Her Dreams

**A/N: **Hey guys! So this is the new and improved first chapter of The Blues Are Still Blue.

The next chapter should be ASAP, I'm having difficulties writing from Ron's POV but with such great reviews I've been receiving I have an incentive to keep writing (and God help me, stop hitting the delete button). Thanks for the support!

And huge _Hola_ for **Albe-Chan** and **Belovedranger**, the girls that helped with this story.

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"_**All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope"**_

**Alexandre Dumas**

* * *

**Blue For Her Dreams**

One blue strip, negative. Two blue strips, positive.

Hermione's hopes and dreams were depending on strips. Ironically, she had always thought of herself as a dot kind of gal.

Sniffing, she waited. There wasn't much she could do except that.

Even tough she, Hermione Granger-Weasley, never was any good at the whole sitting, waiting and wishing part.

And once again, she questioned her method. Why opt for a Muggle device to figure out what Ron called her "tummy status"?

She should have seen a Healer. It was faster and less excruciating.

But her mom had taught her there was no like the one she would feel when she looked at two blue strips symbolizing that a new life was within her.

So she waited.

This was the fifteenth pregnancy test she had taken in two years. She was sick of it, and of wishing and hoping it had finally happened. She was sick of expecting to expect.

Life wasn't fair.

She married her Ron five years after the end of the war. After so many losses.

"_After Tonks, and Lupin and Fred," _she thought, her heart skipping a beat.

But they healed together and grew more impossibly in love.

Then she got pregnant, four months after their wedding. After first hearing the news, she cried herself to sleep. Ron was away on his first Auror training.

Hermione had told herself they couldn't handle a baby - not right now. They were just discovering each other, just getting used to the fact that they were bonded _for life_. Just discovering the pleasures of this togetherness, without curfews or being walked in on. It just wasn't the right _time._

When she woke up, she felt guilty. It was their child, after all. And they had talked about expanding their family after their first anniversary. It was sooner than they had envisioned, but when she pictured a little baby with wild auburn hair and brown eyes, she felt her heart melt. This was th_eir_baby. This was _Ron's_baby. It was a blessing in disguise and she would love it with all her heart, as she did with all things related to the man to whom she gave herself completely.

So her life was perfect for two whole months after the Healer had told her she was going to be a mother. Regardless, she threw up every morning and a little bit in the evenings. She could be yelling at Ron for not lowering the toilet seat and then bawling her eyes out in the next minute. She felt tired, sick and hungry for the better part of those months.

But she felt great. She felt powerful. In six months, she would get to hold a little bun and call it her own flesh and blood. She would get to give Ron the greatest gift she could, even though he jokingly told her he would settle for sex in the rain instead.

Until_it_ happened.

She would carry it around with her forever. The shooting pain, the confusion. The blood – _oh god, so much blood._ The pungent smell that invaded her nostrils as Ron carried her through the crowded lobby of St. Mungo's.

The way her heart broke when she woke up and saw the look in Ron's teary eyes as he told her that she miscarried.

The feeling of having her own dreams robbed from her and discarded away. The shame and the guilt. The feeling of failure. Her own body had sabotaged her.

But they recovered. They always did. It took them a little bit of time and effort, but she pulled through. There were some bad days and once she insisted that Ron should divorce her and marry another witch. But he got furious and called her _"_mental_"_. He told her she was perfect, and someday, they would have a dozen redheaded, always starved bookworms as children.

And she truly wanted to believe him.

So they started to try. And nothing happened. Two years and fifteen pregnancies test later, she was abashed. How [come you suggested could, but I tough come might be a little better she, Hermione Granger Weasley, fail at this? Getting pregnant wasn't supposed to be this hard. And she had achieved success in all the important things she did and had dreamed for herself, ever since she was a little girl...

She had great friends and had gotten top grades while attending school. She helped the world when she joined Ron and Harry on the Horcrux Hunt. She fell in love and married the only man she ever wanted.

Then why she couldn't conceive their child?

The doctor told her there was nothing wrong with them. Nothing wrong with her. But Hermione felt, deep inside, there **had** to be something

And she felt that it had to do with the way that that evil twisted bitch – _she couldn't even think of her without feeling the urge t__o hex something_ – Bellatrix Lestrange had tortured her in the Malfoy Manor.

Hermione wanted to kick and scream at the unfairness of all of this. She wanted to bring that little conniving bitch back to life just to kill her again and spit on her lifeless body.

She had been denied, over and over again, the pleasures and pains of motherhood.

But she would be damned if she stopped trying.

Time ran out as she pondered, and it was time to look at the test result. It was time to know if she were to become a mom like Fleur or Ginny.

If she ever would feel a baby kicking her stomach with all the force it could muster. The pleasure of smelling the sweet undefined smell of her baby's hair.

The grief of watching her baby grow up and face the world, leaving their house emptier and somehow, smaller.

She knew she was a fearless woman, even though she didn't exactly feel this way right now. Hermione got up and took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth.

Would her dream come true? Would she get her chance to carry a child?

Would_their_ dreams come true? Would they get a chance to see their children grow up and embark on adventures on their own?

And if it wasn't the time, would they stop trying?

She knew she couldn't. She knew _they_ wouldn't.

"_I have to find out."_

She was certain she would be okay. She had Ron to look after her. Their bond was so strong and powerful that she knew they could handle whatever life tossed in their direction.

And there it was.

One blue strip.

So simple, so _painful_.

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**A/N:**So here it is! This is the first installment of the 3-shot story "The Blues Are Still Blue". The next one will be from Ron's POV and should be up as soon as possible. A few reviews might speed up the whole process, tough.

I hope you guys enjoyed. Please let me know what you tough.

_**Sophia.**_


	2. She Paints Me Blue

**Chapter 2 – She Paints Me Blue**

"Is this the sound of our demise

Or just the opposite?

I love you and I miss you.

What else is there to say?"

Far More – The Honorary Title

"But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for."

-Paulo Coelho

_**A.N: This chapter takes place six months after "Blue for Her Dreams."**_

___I strongly recommend reading this chapter while listening to "For Blue Skies" by Strays Don't Sleep, one of the many inspirations for this chapter.__ The link for the song is in my profile, if you wish to hear it. __Now, on with the story!_

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This used to be his favorite time of the year. Christmas at The Burrow: the house packed with his ever-growing family, the presents, not to mention the fantastic meal his mother cooked for the family and their friends Neville, Hannah, Hagrid, Andromeda, and Teddy.

It was usually exciting being there during this holiday, even though he still felt odd every time he looked at the green chair by the presents - expecting Fred to be sitting there after the Christmas feast, laughing with George about something Ginny had just said. In spite of the ache in his heart, Ron always found comfort in seeing his siblings around him, all of them missing the one who was absent, together.

However, this year felt different. This Christmas found him feeling nowhere near excited for spending time with his family at The Burrow. One could say he was pre-occupied. If forced, he would acknowledge that as true, though he would rather be trapped in the broom closet with a spider and without a wand than admit this.

As Ron paced around the outside of his childhood home, watching the white snow fall around him and feeling the cold dig its way up his heart, he grudgingly recognized the reason for his ill temper this Christmas. He felt lonely. More than that, he felt _powerless_ to change his situation. Ron felt like something was missing in his life and now he had an idea of what it was. He was missing Hermione.

In theory, his life was perfect. He could afford to live in luxury - even though he didn't - which was something he had never had while growing up with six siblings. He had the respect of his family and the wizarding community – something he had always craved. And best of all, he'd lucked out and married the brightest, most accomplished, and beautiful witch of his age - the girl he grew up with, his best friend, and the woman he loved so completely and in _every_ possible way.

But lately, he could feel her slipping away, the two of them drifting apart.

Quietly, slowly and at an exasperating pace, she was shutting him out. The worst part was he was incapable of stopping what was already happening, for he was afraid that saying the words out loud would make their situation real and not just a paranoid idea of his.

Now everything fell into its right place. The fact was they were in trouble - deep, long-time-coming trouble. She was so distant and he… well, he was jealous of her. Not with other blokes, mind you, because he knew how they felt about each other. He had no doubt of that, and it was obvious he only had eyes for Hermione.

No, he was jealous of the fact that she wanted a baby so badly: that creating their baby was the only thing she could think about. This made him wonder if he might not be enough to complete her, if maybe he couldn't make _her_ as happy as she made _him_.

As the months turned into years while they kept trying to get pregnant without results, they landed into an unpleasant place in which the baby-making process became increasingly clinical and left no room for romance or spontaneity. The good old days of lovemaking in the rain or in the shower were long gone, and he missed them. They had been _brilliant _and they made him feel more alive than ever.

He could feel his ears grow red with this train of thoughts. But it was true: the sex now felt mechanical, something done out of obligation. He missed the closeness he and Hermione used to share, and not only in bed. He longed to hear her whispering sweet nothings to him, to see the look in her eyes when they would lie in bed together, after - and he would tell her he would love her forever, if she let him. He wanted it back, those little rituals they had.

He loved the way they used to sleep in late on Sundays just to be together for a little while more. He wanted to draw baths for her again with those funny Muggle salts she loved so much, the ones that smelled of roses. They hardly ever stayed up late working on the living room floor together as they used to. Their hands rarely looked for each other, touching, comforting. She never laid her head across his chest anymore while he gently played with that sweet hair of hers. These days, she barely spent time with him _at all_. He missed _talking_ to her, not just speaking - as they are doing more and more lately.

"_I wish I could give her what she wants the most."_

He thought about their child, the one they both desired, and he knew he wanted a little girl with Hermione's eyes and hunger for knowledge. Then again, a baby boy with the wild, curly hair he loved so much would be nice as well. Maybe both. He didn't care, really, for the most important thing to him, to them, would be a child. _Their_ child.

But sometimes, he couldn't help but fear that when Hermione became a mother, she would stop being a wife. He knew he was at his breaking point, for he felt like they were losing each other and it felt like losing one of his limbs. Hermione felt like such a vital part of his life, _of him_, that the possibility of 'them' not meaning to her as much as it used to made his insides turn to ice, mirroring the garden of The Burrow.

These kinds of thoughts made Ron feel selfish and small. _Mental_, really. He knew he wanted to be a dad, but he wanted Hermione to remain the same, which he knew now was _impossible_. She had already changed and he wanted her back, the way Hermione had been before the baby madness had started. The way _they _had been. He wanted the woman that would randomly surprise him with a picnic in his office on a Wednesday evening. He wished for the fiery Hermione that could excite him into either a shouting match or a shag-a-thon with a distinct, so Hermione-like look in her eyes. He wanted the gentle girl he knew, the one that silently held his hand and wiped his tears when he woke up shivering and covered in cold sweat from the terrible nightmares he had of his entire family being tortured to death in front of his eyes while he was unable to help them.

The fact that they didn't seem able to – and how he loathed the word – conceive made him feel incapable**, **_useless _somehow**. **Like an utter failure as a husband, because he was failing the one thing he had promised himself to do: to give her everything he had, everything she wanted, **everything. **The possible and impossible.

After eight years together, he was still willing to give her all of those things. He had waited for her to be ready for sex for almost two excruciating years, and it was worth it. Even though he proposed nearly ten months after the end of the war, he agreed to wait for her to marry him, which only happened five years later.

After his first proposal, she gave him her earnest and most adorable look and told him that even though she wanted their life together to start as much as he did, they still needed time.

"There's no rush, Ron," she had said. "The war is over and we have the rest of our lives to be together. Don't you think we can wait for a little while?"

Therefore, he had waited, and it was all worth it when she said yes the fifth time he asked her. Well, he had actually _dared_ her to say yes, for he knew she could resist a challenge as much as he could resist a box full of chocolates. Sometimes he wondered that he was first attracted to Hermione because her eyes looked like chocolate. Later he discovered she tasted like chocolate, which clearly made her more irresistible to him altogether.

Now he felt so… frustrated, more than he ever was back then, when he kept proposing and she kept asking for more time. He wasn't able to impregnate his wife, supposedly one of the many talents the Weasley men were famous for. He _knew _deep down that for that reason his wife was suffering and their marriage was struggling to survive. That this was why she was so distant and he felt so lonely.

If he could be granted one Christmas wish, he would wish to see the smile he missed so much on Hermione's face. The one she used to give him freely and constantly before the miscarriage. The one that failed to appear as often after each Muggle pregnancy test she took, the most deranged Muggle conception he knew. Having to piss on a little stick? That sounded just revolting to him, but for some mysterious reason she kept relying on them to find out her tummy status.

"Ron! Dinner's is ready, c'mon!" his sister called.

"In a minute!" he yelled in response.

He let an anguished cry of relief escape his lips. His mother's cooking never failed to set his world straight and make him feel like everything would be just fine.

* * *

After dessert, everybody grew quiet. Ron was distracted, observing his sister and Harry holding hands. They married a year before Ron and Hermione, but they still seemed to touch each other just for the sake of it. Ginny's second pregnancy was treating her more kindly than her first, and even though she was nearly a week past her due date she still looked comfortable in her own skin.

Harry looked better too, not as anxious and scared as he'd looked when James, whose first birthday they had celebrated two weeks ago, was born. Harry was rubbing Ginny's belly and she was laughing at Angie's stories of George's attempts to prank her on the day of their second anniversary.

Ron turned his attention to the one sitting next to him, his wife. She was talking to Bill about the new goblins' rights laws she was planning to submit for the Wizengamot's approval next year. He wanted to get lost in her voice, he wanted to play with the loose strands of her hair and maybe, just maybe, snog her senseless upstairs in his old room.

"Ronnie, dear, could you help me tidy up the kitchen?" his mother requested, her voice breaking him out of his reverie.

He nodded, feeling his ears growing red. He was almost twenty-six, but his mother could always find ways to mortify him. George and Bill, having had too much Firewhisky, chuckled at his embarrassment, for they remembered the last time she asked him to help her tidy up the kitchen. His mother had ended up cornering him and Harry in an attempt to coerce them into waiting for their wedding nights. Harry, the bastard, seemed to recall the "conversation" as well, as he tried to stifle a laugh by sipping his drink, but failed horribly and nearly choked. Served him right, laughing at his best mate like that; had he no shame? Ron could have easily told his mother the nature of Harry and Ginny's activities in their flat, but he'd kept it quiet. Hermione had sworn him to silence and he had no intention of crossing her, for it would have meant a drastic decrease of their own "activities" as well.

Ron looked at his wife pleadingly. She shrugged and said, "I'm sure it won't be like the last time, love." Then she gave him an admonishing look. "Be nice to her, Ron. You know how emotional she gets at this time of the year."

"I'm always nice to her." He grinned, but then his smile wavered. "You'll be all right out here, love?"

The little ones loved their Aunt Mione and were always asking her for stories and cuddles, which she always gave. Ron could almost hear her heart breaking from across the room each time one of them fell asleep on her lap and their mother took them away and carried them to bed. She never said a thing about this, but she was always on edge before family reunions, and big holidays were the worst.

Hermione gave him a halfhearted smile, the saddened one she had been giving him for the past six months or so, the one that seemed to say "I'm fine" when she really wasn't.

"I think I can handle them, Ron. I'm a big girl." She got up. "Let's not make a fuss about this. I already told you I'm fine."

He kissed the top of her head, where his favorite curls resided; this was something he hadn't done for a while. The rest of the family had left the room and was scattered around the Christmas tree, listening to the wireless radio. Celestina Warbeck's new song, "You've Bewitched Me," was playing. The children remembered their tradition and requested their Aunt Hermione's stories.

She left the kitchen while Ron watched her walk away. He could feel the need building inside of him and he hoped he could take her home and make love to her in the slow - almost agonizingly slow - way they loved so much and hadn't done in almost a year. He did not know exactly what had changed her, but something drastic had happened six months ago and since then, she was holding him at arm's length and he was tired of feeling lonely.

"_What happened six months ago?"_

"Ron?" his mother asked. He felt a pang of embarrassment and flushed.

"Come here, I need your help." He saw her absentmindedly send a pile of plates to wash themselves at the sink. "How are things with you and that wonderful wife of yours?"

"They're fine, Mum." He could hear Hermione's soft voice as she told the little ones that Muggle story of the girl who slept for a hundred years after pricking her finger on a spindle - Sleeping Beautiful or something. As far as Ron was concerned, she must have drunk a very powerful sleeping draught and nobody bothered to give her an antidote. "Fan-fucking-tastic."

"Watch your mouth, Ronald Weasley! You may be all grown up, but I'm still your mother and I won't have that kind of language in my house." He blushed again. "Now tell me the truth."

Ron sighed inwardly. There was no escaping this. He felt as awkward and self-conscious as he'd felt when she ambushed him and Harry four years ago. He searched for the right words and faltered. He was still rubbish with them and three years of marriage attested that Hermione hadn't rubbed off on him after all.

"I'm useless." He wanted to cover his mouth with his hands as the words escaped him. Ron realized he was probably experiencing something Teddy called word vomit.

"Useless?" his mother repeated incredulously. He knew this was worse than when he'd confessed to her that there was no point in waiting for the wedding night when he and Hermione had stopped waiting a couple of years earlier.

"We, uh, I…" He stuttered, "I'm worthless. I can't even give my wife a baby. And she's… she's so _different_. I know she blames me for this. I just know it."

His mother huffed, and he looked away. He knew what he might see in her eyes and he couldn't take her pity. It was uncalled for, and it made him feel worse.

"Ron?" She was sporting a fierce and annoyed look on her face. Out of all things he thought he might see in her eyes, annoyance wasn't his first guess. "Are you listening to me?"

"Sorry, Mum. What did you say?"

"**Ronald Weasley**, you pay attention when I'm talking to you!" He could hear the noise in the sitting room dying as his mother's voice rose. She noticed it too and cast a silencing charm on the room.

"I said you're neither useless nor worthless. That's **absurd**, and _I will not have it_! I am **certain** it will happen for you two. Call it a mother's intuition or wishful thinking, I don't mind. When was I ever proven wrong before?"

"You were wrong plenty of times," he mumbled, embarrassed about the tongue-lashing and the fact that everyone in the next room was aware of it. "Like when you tried to prevent us from leaving for the Horcrux hunt. Or when you thought Bill and Fleur were rushing things."

He didn't mention the fact that she was wrong about the twins' joke shop. He really didn't fancy going there, especially as he had a strong suspicion that she would burst into tears.

"I said _proved_ wrong. And Bill and Fleur _were_ rushing things! Such dangerous times, _anything_ could have happened!" She trembled a bit and he knew she was thinking of Fred. "I **was** right; even though I am glad they got married when they did, because Victoire was born soon after…"

"I'm glad too," Ron interrupted, sensing a meltdown. He never did well with those.

She gave him a watery smile and ruffled his hair, reminding him of when he was a little boy going to his parents' room when he couldn't sleep. Suddenly, he felt reassured.

"Mum." He looked at the floor while a flush crept through his neck. "Thank you."

She patted him on the cheek and smiled softly. He was about to leave when she said, "Ronnie?" He turned around. "Hermione…she's not resenting you for this. And you're not _losing_ her either. I think she just feels like she is to blame for this and that she is holding you back from having a family like your brothers. All she needs is reassurance and love." He nodded. "You also haven't been yourself lately either, and I know she misses you just like I know you miss her."

"Blimey, Mum!" He felt a little gobsmacked. "How do you know all of this?"

But she just winked at him and shooed him off, declaring that the family had gotten so big that there was cleaning to last a lifetime, even if her daughters helped.

* * *

Much later that night he watched Hermione undress through the corner of his eye, as they got ready for bed. This was a usual occurrence for them, but tonight somehow, it _felt_ different. He could not put his finger on what had changed, but _something _had happened and it worried him.

The way she moved around him, the way she took her time getting out of her dress. Everything in the way she acted around him felt unusual compared to the way she had been in those past months.

Ron couldn't remember a time when they had felt so at ease in each other's presence in the recent past. And for the life of him, he couldn't remember the last time he had seen her undo the bun that kept her hair so orderly arranged, the one he loved to undo to let his fingers slide through the soft curls that now almost reached the end of her back.

The rest of the night turned out better than he had expected. For a moment - when Ginny gasped and announced her water had broken, he'd thought Hermione would just crumble into pieces in front of everyone, but the look of shock on her face turned into one of genuine pleasure.

She had cried, but they were tears of happiness, and she'd given Ginny a fierce hug. Then, his sister whispered something in her ear that made her laugh out loud in a way that made his stomach do a double back flip and his heart feel like it was beating near his knees. He knew this Hermione. She was the one he early on figured out he was missing so badly.

She had looked at him through her tears and smiled, the smile that had gone astray for so long - the same one he had earlier wished to see while standing in The Burrow's yard.

Harry had taken Ginny upstairs with Mum's help, and the women in the family took turns assisting their sister-in-law in the delivery or watching a fussy and confused James until Albus Severus Potter was born, two and a half hours later.

Ron had patted Harry's back and joined his brothers in celebration. Hermione had been so delighted that she pecked Ron on the lips in front of the entire family. Neville was the baby's godfather and he had gotten so pissed with the three glasses he drank of Ogden's Finest that Hannah had to take him home an hour later. His mother still dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief by the time they too had decided to head home. Ginny had decided that her family would stay at The Burrow for a couple of days after Christmas, so Ron and Hermione would return to the house in the morning for the gift exchange that had been delayed by the birth.

Hermione looked serene now, as she always did when she just had found a solution to a troubling problem and everything was in its right place now. He couldn't wait to discover what had happened to change her demeanor towards him, towards _them. _

He was taken aback when she turned around moments later, while sliding inside the Chudley Cannons' shirt she used for sleep, and gave him that smile, the same smile that dazzled him. Seeing it twice in the same night made him wonder about Christmas miracles.

She was looking at him now with that smoldering look, another Hermione-ish thing he loved about her. His heart started to beat in his throat and he wondered how he could still be so smitten by her after so many years together.

"Ron?"

He nodded, for he was afraid of saying anything to break the magic that seemed to surround them in that moment.

"I realized something tonight." He nodded again, encouraging her to continue. "I _understood_ that I need to let go of the whole getting-pregnant-thing."

He just stood there, flabbergasted. There she was, the Hermione he knew, never failing to surprise and make him temporarily speechless.

"When Ginny went into labor tonight, something inside my head just _clicked. _Just like that.I realized that **all** of _this_ is out of my control and I can't beat myself up over it anymore! If it is bound to happen, then it will. If it's not…well, we'll figure something out."

"We will?"

"I hope we will," she said softly, almost whispering.

He smiled at her, his true smile, the one he didn't know he hadn't been giving until now.

"I don't want to _lose_ you, Ron." He could see the pain in her eyes and hear the fear in her voice. "I'm sorry for the way I've been acting lately." She sighed. "It was just that I was so… angry! I felt like I had **failed** you, me, our plans."

Her eyes were glistening with tears, but the smile remained attached to her pink and beautiful lips.

"Remember that last pregnancy test I took?"

He looked confused, but immediately some light went on. How had he managed to forget it? He had come home to find her sitting on their bed, the house immersed in darkness. He'd almost had a heart attack. She'd been sitting so still in the dark that he took her for dead. But as he stood by their bed, she'd told him slowly that she wasn't, in fact, pregnant. He'd held her stony frame, expecting her to cry, but she'd just shrugged him off and gone to work on some legal work for the Orphans of the War Foundation. When had this happened?

His body went rigid with the realization. The last test she took was six months ago. She was looking at him, expectantly, and he nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"Well, after it turned out negative, I felt so angry. I was frustrated, and when Ginny owled hours later saying she was indeed pregnant again, something _broke_ inside of me. I got so envious and mad at her for something she couldn't control, and I felt horrible! I had lost all hope and I was so tired of wanting… It was as if I was being cheated, tricked into waiting indefinitely for something that came so easily for everybody else! I resented myself for those feelings, but I hadn't the nerve to talk to you about them. I was afraid you would see me for the monster I felt I was. I was scared that you would leave me, and when it started to come between us, I did nothing to stop it because I felt like I deserved losing you..."

Her lips were quivering and she was standing in front of him, expecting him to be mad at her for having feelings! This was mental! She wasn't a monster; she was _human, _and he was about to say that to her when she silenced him with a pleading look. He stopped himself from protesting and let her continue.

"Ron, I was being **stupid**, _**so stupid! **_But I am **done** being stupid now, Ron, I swear! Can you ever forgive me for this?"

"There's nothing to forgive, love." His voice felt raw, like he hadn't been using it for ages. His emotions were running wild and he was sure that if he didn't put a stop to Hermione's speech, he might cry. "I knew we were in trouble but never acted on this too; I just didn't fancy admitting it."

He kissed her lips softly and was pleased to learn that she still tasted of chocolate.

"I'm not mad at you at all, love. You're only human and you were hurting. I never helped you; I was too selfish to recognize what you were feeling. I'm the one that should be asking for forgiveness. You are far from stupid. You're the single **most** intelligent, accomplished and _beautiful _witch I have ever met."

He closed his eyes. This was the longest conversation he'd ever had about his feelings.

"What I'm trying to say is…I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too, Ron. I love-"

"Hush." He lifted her head to look into those chocolate eyes of hers. "I missed you."

She was openly crying now. How long had it been since he'd seen her crying like this? He never realized how or when, but now they were in each other's arms, holding on in an almost desperate way. This was the turning point for them.

What could he possibly say after this? There was nothing at all, and he was never good with words anyway; they were her specialty. So he did what he was best at.

He kissed her, with all the passion and frustration he'd suffered in those lonely months he had spent by her side and without her. He had _never_ felt so famished and deprived of his Hermione, so immersed in his own desires. She responded to him with equal passion and impatience, and the realization that she felt just as denied as he did came as a shock to him.

His mother had been right after all. However, _this_ wasn't the time to be thinking about _that_.

Hermione sighed into his mouth and adjusted her body to his. She smelled of roses, just as he remembered. Ron let his hands roam freely over her body, the desperation he felt diminishing. He knew now that they would be just fine and he wanted to remember – he wanted _her _to remember, as well – the first night in ages in which they made love just for _being_ in love. He wanted to etch it into their minds, to burn it forever in their memory. Ron reluctantly broke the kiss and untangled his hands from her hair as he told her, "_I love you."_

She rubbed her nose on his. "_I will love you forever, if you let me."_

She said it back in the same way she used to, even though the kiss that followed was answer enough for him.

Ron never cared for words too much anyway.

* * *

_**Beware of a gigantic Author's Note ahead:**_

_So, everybody, here it is. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Let me know with reviews,okay? _

_A very important acknowledgment goes to my beta, __**AlbeChan**__. A big thank you also goes to Belovedranger Lisa, for her insight on Ron's POV and for offering to pre-beta my story. And last but not least... a __**HUGE **__hug and chocolate chip cookie to ALL of those who reviewed, subscribed and favored my story - I'm sorry for the long wait, guys. I hope the length of this chapter makes it up to you. Your reviews make my day! I'll appreciate even more feedback for this one too!_

_Love, Sophia_


	3. Brown To Blue

**The Blues Are Still Blue**

**Chapter 3 **

**Brown to Blue**

**  
**_"Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No. Just as one can never learn how to paint."  
_- Pablo Picasso

_"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way… Things I had no words for."  
_- Georgia O'Keeffe

_"What if I told you your tears haven't been ignored?__**  
**__And everything that was taken can be restored?__**  
**__Feel this.__**  
**__Can you feel this?__**  
**__My heart beating out of my chest?"  
_Feel This - Bethany Joy Galeotti.

**Warning: If you have weak teeth, I would advise to stay away from this chapter. Yes, I've gone out of my mind and fluffed the whole-thing. Please don't hate me.**

* * *

Brown to blue, his heart stopped.

Brown to red, his heart began to pound faster.

When he looked into those pools of brown chocolate, the world just stopped and life without that colour ceased to exist.

When he looked at his favorite pillow to see her wild brown hair sprawled all over it, combining with his, his heart accelerated and almost burst with happiness.

This was what it felt like to be alive.

For Ron, this was one of the moments in which he loved her the most. She looked so vulnerable and carefree, lying in bed with him. Hermione's browns suited his reds completely.

The shape of her nose, the light patch of brown freckles that graced her left shoulder blade…

Ron's heart was so full of love and passion for Hermione that he felt like he could burst. Hermione made him feel like he was nineteen and desperately in love again.

On Christmas night, they had fallen in love again and things had drastically improved between them since. Well, they hadn't made love in the rain yet, but it was only the end of January. Ron could hardly wait for the storm season to begin.

Last week Ron had surprised Hermione with a weekend away at a lovely cottage by the sea. He had bought her tea roses, her favorites, and those Muggle bath salts she loved. Ron had actually tried them while they shared a bath – a _dirty_ bath. And he had to confess, those salts had served to make the whole experience _very…_ interesting.

Maybe they could try it again.

* * *

Hermione was kissing Ron's collarbone and teasing his nipples with her tongue, and his body was responding to her even though he was clearly asleep. She hummed happily to herself as she tried to take advantage of her husband without waking him up.

At least, that was what she thought.

Hermione yelped, completely surprised, when Ron's eyes suddenly snapped open and he inverted their positions. He was now lying on top of her, sporting the most adorable look of mischief in his shockingly blue eyes and giving her the lopsided grin that made her heart beat fast and slow at the same time.

"Planning on molesting me in my sleep, wife?"

She nodded, for she felt incapable of doing any talking, not when her body was responding to him in such _brilliant _ways. Merlin, the effect he still had on her after so many years together never ceased to both amaze and scare Hermione.

"You could have just asked, you know?" He smiled, taunting her. "Well, I guess you'll just have to _pay _for that now!"

She barely had time to utter an appropriate response to his threat before he proceeded to tickle the living daylights out of her.

How she **loved** that man!

* * *

"Listen to me, love," Ron said worriedly. "I have to leave for this mission in Morocco, but I'll be back before you even notice I'm gone."

"No you won't, Ron. If I didn't notice your absence for two weeks, you would either be married to Luna or we would have to be living someplace as huge as the Peverell Chateau."

"Blimey! Don't remind me of Harry's place in France; it just makes me want to work harder so we can afford that mansion near his."

"What do we need a mansion for? Whenever we travel, we go to the Chateau or to Neville and Hannah's house in Scotland."

"I wish you would let me buy you a fancy house somewhere."

"I'm very happy here at the Red Cottage. And do not go trying to smooth things over, Ronald! You are not going to distract me from the fact that you'll be spending Valentine's Day in North Africa surrounded by some belly-dancer, fire-spatter girl and other exotic women!"

"You're as exotic as I can take, Mione," Ron answered, nuzzling her neck. He could sense Hermione giving in to the idea. Feeling bold, Ron teased her earlobe with his teeth and her sharp intake of breath was answer enough. Her smooth skin felt as hot as if it was catching fire.

"Don't do this do me, Ron," she said, but Hermione could feel her defenses crumbling with his advances. "You know that I hate it when you try to distract me from an argument."

"I was simply giving into my hormonal needs."

"You're not nineteen anymore," said Hermione, but she giggled when Ron sucked the sensitive spot on her collarbone.

"I beg to differ here, luv," said Ron, and he pressed his body flush into hers. "You _love _it when I distract you from an argument." She sighed, a little disappointed when he kissed her temple instead of her mouth. "And I feel like nineteen again, in case you haven't noticed," he continued.

"Oh, it's noticeable."

"Good to know," said Ron, and he kissed her cheek breezily, as if he hadn't just started a heated moment between them. "Now that you've seen reason, I should go. I'm very late."

With that, Ron turned to leave.

**"Ronald Weasley, come back here and finish what you've started, or I swear I'll send a flock of canaries to hunt you down and kill you!"**

He stopped dead in his tracks, trying to suppress the instinctual urge to run for his life.

"Well, since you asked nicely, Mrs. Weasley…"

And he kissed her until he felt dizzy, completely intoxicated by her scent. "_Chocolate, roses and a hint of parchment." _He couldn't explain it, but that was what she smelled like.

"It's Mrs. Granger-Weasley."

* * *

Hermione tried not to drop the packages she was carrying. She would rather carry her bags instead of levitating them, which Hermione thought made her look lazy. She giggled to herself, for she could almost hear Ron's mocking voice, saying _"Are you a witch or not?"_

Hermione couldn't believe how much she missed Ron. He had left nearly two and a half weeks ago, and she didn't know what do with herself. She was working, well, mostly _trying_. She felt like she was nineteen again, just out of the war and completely in love with her boyfriend. Two days ago, she had been working on a case against the mistreatment of House Elves with Ernie Macmillan and Daphne Greengrass, and she had completely zoned out, remembering Ron's goodbye the morning he left for Morocco.

_"Now I just need to get my robes adjusted for the Valentine's Day Gala and I can go home." _

Hermione thought about trying to talk to her husband through the Floo after some quiet dinner by the fireplace. A little annoyed with all the shopping (presents for Ron, Harry, Ginny and the rest of the family), she hoped that Madam Malkin's wouldn't be too crowded and that Lavender, the shop's manager, had already taken her maternity leave. Hermione was exhausted, could feel a headache coming and it didn't help that she felt extremely bloated, even though her period had already made an appearance.

Her heart still ached and hurt, but Hermione was letting go of the idea of being pregnant. There was clearly nothing she or Ron could do, and she was tired of agonizing over it. After all, they had many other options. She had already looked up Wizarding adoption, and there was Muggle adoption as well. Hermione still felt a little hesitant about it, for there was a little spark of hope inside her that refused to disappear. Well, it refused to disappear at least until early January, when she realized that the only miracle that had happened over Christmas was the recovery of her marriage.

Hermione opened the shop door and let out a sigh of relief. There was no one in sight, which meant that Hermione didn't have to put up with the whispering ("Is it really_ her?!"), _the pointing or having to engage in pointless chitchat about the weather or who-was-with-whom this month.

"Madam Malkin?"

"In the fitting room, dear."

Hermione made a left turn around some dreadful velvet dress robes and found Madam Malkin with two other dressmakers, fixing the robes of both a heavily pregnant Luna Lovegood – wait, Scamander – and the barely showing Hannah Longbottom.

_"Seriously?"_

It was like rubbing salt into wounds that had just begun to heal. Everywhere Hermione went lately, she met pregnant women or former classmates with their children. Feeling more barren than ever, Hermione forced a tight smile for her friends. After all, they had been her bridesmaids.

"Luna, Hannah, hullo."

"Hermione, a little Valentine's Day shopping?" Hannah asked, her affable smile showing the dimples that Neville swore made him fall in love with her in the first place.

"Yeah, just getting a few things out of the way."

"Ronald's away on a mission, right?" Luna's eerie voice sounded understanding. She was wearing magnificent silver robes that made her enormous belly look positively intimidating. "We're adjusting our dresses for the Valentine's Gala that the Ministry is throwing."

Hermione flinched when Luna suddenly hunched over in pain. "_**Oh!**_ The twins are kicking really hard. You want to feel them, Hermione?"

"Erm, thanks Luna, but I think I'll pass," Hermione replied uneasily.

A look of comprehension dawned on Hannah's face that made Hermione blush and regret coming into the store in the first place. "Have you found out the sex yet?" she asked.

"The Healer knows, but Rolf and I would rather be surprised. We're doing things the old-fashioned way, just like Ginny and Harry. I'm giving birth at home, in a bathtub constructed specifically for the labor, which will occur during a full moon. First, we'll do a welcoming dance with chanting that will help welcome the babies to the world. I'm supposed to be wearing only a crown made of wild flowers, to repel the Wrackspurts. Then Rolf and the coaches alternate with assisting me on my breathing while I'm concentrating on the babies. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?"

Hannah laughed at Hermione's appalled expression.

"It sounds…" But Hermione was at a loss for words, for what felt like the first time in her life. She couldn't shake from her mind the image of a naked Luna with her huge belly chanting under the moonlight.

"Unique," Hannah finished, and Hermione reckoned that she hadn't really appreciated Hannah up until that moment. "Me, I'm all for the potions and the assisting Healers at St. Mungo's."

_"Stop picturing it, Hermione! It's not like you will be there."_

"Dear, are you listening to me?" said Madam Malkin, interrupting Hermione's thoughts. Hermione shook her head, and Madam Malkin repeated her question. "How can I help you?"

"I, erm, need to re-adjust these dress robes."

Madam Malkin guided Hermione away into the safety of the dressing room and then left her to change, but not before stating with a wink of her forest green eyes, "Mrs. Scamander is a bit off her rocker, but she's quite fun to be around, don't you think?"

Hermione couldn't figure out why the robes she had bought three months ago didn't fit her anymore. They were a beautiful set of golden satin that suited her skin colour perfectly. Had she gained weight over the holidays? She thought she had been '_exercising_'with Ron enough to burn off any weight she might have put on from Molly's wonderful cooking.

Hermione looked at herself in the mirror while she listened to Luna's babbling and Hannah's appreciative laughter. Her face did look slightly fuller than before, and it was the strangest thing: her wild hair seemed tamer somehow, and it almost reached her bum, though she could swear she had had a haircut in late December. Something unusual was happening and Hermione couldn't really point out what exactly had changed, except the re-found feelings Ron was evoking in her.

"Cameron is due in July," Hannah was saying outside Hermione's dressing room door. "Neville is so excited that he's also getting all of the food cravings that I'm having!" Hannah caressed her nearly hardly noticeable belly. "Have you met Seamus and Lavender's little girl yet? Margo's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen, all blonde and gurgling."

Hermione felt a pang in her heart. Being childless was hard enough without having her entire circle of friends procreating right under her nose.

Hermione had always dreamed of her child attending Hogwarts with Harry and Ginny's sons, but every day that dream died a little. Taking a deep breath and summoning all of her Gryffindor courage, Hermione left her dressing room and entered the fitting room.

"Oh, Hermione!" said Hannah, tears forming in her eyes.  
_  
"Hormones,"_ Hermione thought with an internal eye roll.

"What's the matter?" Hermione asked, slightly irritably.

"You look so…_beautiful." _Madam Malkin conjured a handkerchief and handed it to Hannah, who began to dab at her eyes. "You're practically glowing!"

Madam Malkin's assistants were almost done fixing her dress.

"These are the robes I'll be wearing to the Gala." Hermione beamed, feeling flattered and uncommonly teary-eyed at her friend's compliments.

"Ron will be speechless," Hannah assured her. "When's he coming back?"

"The thirteenth," Hermione replied with a sigh. She hated to sigh like a lovesick schoolgirl, but she just couldn't help it. She missed her husband, and his absence was affecting her immensely. Just last night, she cried herself to sleep after she came across the Muggle photograph they took on their first date. She was counting the days until he came back. "Only five more days."

Luna was scrutinizing Hermione as she talked to Hannah, absentmindedly rubbing her protuberant stomach.

"So, Hermione, you and Ron must attend the twins' birth as our coaches." Luna didn't notice Hermione's horrified face. "Unless you're quite large yourself by then. You've seemed to have gained a lot of weight…When are you due?"

* * *

Ron Apparated to the front yard of the Red Cottage and wiped his feet on the kitchen doormat, as it had been raining before he arrived so his shoes were all muddied. If he made a mess of the living room floor, Hermione would personally take care of putting him to sleep on the sofa for two weeks, or maybe more. His assignment had concluded faster than the Auror team had expected, so he and Harry had been able to return to their respective homes two days early.

Ron hadn't contacted Hermione because he wanted his homecoming to be a surprise. He couldn't wait to surprise her in her drawing room and take her in his arms so they could make love again. Those weeks without her had felt like an eternity, and he couldn't figure out how he had managed to spend so much time away from her before.

The house was immersed in darkness, and the sound of silence was deafening. Feeling a surge of panic shoot through his blood, Ron remembered the last time he had come home to find the house like this. Ron could only think one thing, over and over again-

_"Please, don't let it be like the last time!"_

Racing up the stairs, he found the bedroom door locked. He knocked, trying to catch his breath but failing as the panic took over. He couldn't lose Hermione, not when they were slowly but surely finding their way back to each other.

"Hermione, are you there?" Silence. "Can you let me in?"

Still no response. Ron cursed under his breath. This_wasn't_happening again, not if he had any say in it. He couldn't deal with watching the sparkle on those lovely brown eyes fade away once again, not when it had so recently returned.

"Hermione, open this blasted do-"

He almost wished she hadn't. Her face was ghost-like, her eyes red and puffy, her nose running. She looked like she hadn't slept in ages. Her eyes had that maniacal glint, worse even than the time she started revising for her NEWT's in December.

"Mione, what happened?" he asked softly, trying really hard to suppress his fear. He didn't think they could handle another false pregnancy scare.  
She started to shake her head, blinking really fast to clean the fresh batch of tears clouding her eyes. She entered the bedroom and sat at the edge of their massive bed, the one in which they had made love countless times. Well, not really. Three hundred and forty-five times and still counting, but that didn't matter now.

Ron kneeled in front of her and clasped her hands in his, trying to attract those gorgeous chocolate eyes, but she kept refusing to make eye contact.

"Look at me love, luv," he pleaded. "Look at me and tell me what happened."

At his prompt, she started a whole description of what had happened since Ron had left for Morocco. She told him about headaches, crying randomly, bloating and imagining watching Luna chant while wearing only a crown of wild flowers. He was very confused and slightly scared.

"Mione, you know I love you, right?" She nodded. "And I _really _want to know what happened, but you do have to be this detail oriented when it comes to your, er, feminine issues? Can you be a little more- objective, luv?"

"Luna asked me when I'm due," she blurted out.

"What?" Now Ron was utterly confused.

"Ron, _**listen **_to me! I went to Madam Malkin's to adjust my dress robes for tomorrow's Gala."

"Why are you adjusting them? Did you gain weight? You do look a little bit plumper."

She started to sob, anguished, and Ron mentally kicked himself for once again managing to put his exceptionally large foot into his mouth.

"It's not like that, Mione! You know I think you're beautiful and I-"

"Ron, Luna was there at Madam Malkin's and she asked when I'm **due**. She thought I was pregnant." His eyes were as big as saucers when he finally realized what Hermione was trying to tell him.

"But you're not…" Hermione looked down. "Right?"

She sobbed more violently and her whole body shook with emotion. Ron was experiencing a tingling feeling in the tip of his fingers, in the part where his body touched hers. Hermione shook her head again, as if her ears were full of water from the Black Lake – just like after the second task of the Triwizard Tournament.

"You are?" His voice came out as if belonged to another person, scratching his throat.

"I took another test." Deafening silence. Ron was stunned and Hermione still looked shocked. "After she asked me this, I left the store is a hurry and went back home. I just couldn't believe what she had said; you know how Luna is so unusual! Oh, Ron, I tried to carry on as if nothing had happened, but those blasted words just kept nagging me for two days straight. So today, I left work a little bit early."

Ron held his breath. Somehow, the feeling of dread that had enveloped him earlier when he came home was lifting and he was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this was their time.

"I bought another test at that Muggle drugstore in the village. I took it one hour ago. I didn't buy the strip one, as they were bad luck before; I bought the pink or blue one. And it turned blue. It turned _blue, _Ron!"

She paused, staring straight ahead as if he wasn't really there, holding her hands. Her eyes looked dry, and the dull stare she first had given him when he came home was gone. It was as if the wheels in her brain had just started functioning.

"And I thought, this is wrong. This can't be happening. Not to us. Because it hasn't before, when we tried _so hard…_" Hermione's body shook with barely restrained laughter, and she was now sporting this slightly maniacal look on her face that reminded him of Sirius's pictures in The Prophet. "I mean, we took sixteen pregnancy tests before, and they all turned negative. Sixteen! And this one, this **one **turned positive! When we weren't planning, hoping, trying…It just happened."

"So I went out and bought another test." Hermione was looking at the floor, almost as if she were…Embarrassed. Ron had a feeling about this, so he had to ask.

"Another test?"

"Yes. And a few more."

"How many more?"

"I may have gone a little bit overboard with it." Red tinged Hermione's face. This was definitely alarming. "I bought sixteen tests."

_**"Sixteen pregnancy tests?"  
**_  
"Ron, calm down. If your voice goes up an inch higher, you'll hurt the neighbor dog's hearing."

_"Sixteen pregnancy tests?" _Hermione just nodded. "How can you produce so much…?"

"There's a spell for it, if you must know."

"You know, it amazes me: your ability to learn the most useless spells and put them to use them in appropriate times. It's kinda of scary, actually."

"And is this what worries you? The amount of urine I produced? Not the fact that after years of trying, after all those tests, when we had finally given up on it, I might have **finally **managed to get this right?"

Silence enveloped them. Hermione had an almost smile gracing her lips, and she swayed a little when she got up unexpectedly. Her brown eyes were shining with excitement and her face lit up, as if she just had realized what it truly meant. Ron felt his heart skip a beat. Was this real? Was it true? Were they finally having a baby?

Ron knew the answer in his heart, for he knew that only a positive result – a positive blue stick, or more like seventeen of them - could provoke such emotions in Hermione's deep brown eyes. But he needed to know for sure.

"And blue means?"

"Blue means that I'm pregnant." Hermione pulled her hair out of her face. She looked at him with amazement in her eyes and a completely new posture. "Ron? I said I'm pregnant. _**Pregnant! **_We're having a baby! And I have seventeen peed-on sticks to prove it!"

She started to laugh and to cry at the same time as he stood there, feeling so much happiness that he was afraid of moving and discovering that it was only a dream.

"_**We're**_ having a baby."

And Ron finally let himself imagine, really picture a child with Hermione. He let himself picture her as big as a house and spending thousands of Galleons on parenting books. He allowed himself to envision their child, his wife holding their baby in her arms, a toddler running towards him, a little boy watching amazed as his daddy took him to his first Quidditch match. A little girl asking him for stories of princesses and dragons. Their child leaving for Hogwarts. The first Howler Hermione would send.  
Tears welled up in his eyes and he felt like letting them spill over. Hermione just stood there, watching him with an impossibly huge grin plastered on her lips.

Ron was overwhelmed with giddiness and the impossibility of the whole thing. They had given up on this, and it finally happened for them. It sounded like a cruel joke, but a wonderful one at the same time. For it had been a long wait, but this moment compensated for everything.  
There was so much to come, and a lot of it was uncertain, but Ron could feel it in his gut, in his _blood_ that this would work for them this time.

They were having a baby.

_They_ were having a _baby._

_**They were having a baby!**_

Red hair, brown eyes. Red to brown, brown to red. Their colours mixed together perfectly in a child they created. Brown hair, blue eyes. Brown to blue, blue to brown. Their colors mixed perfectly in a child, their child.  
The possibilities were so vast, there was such infinite potential that Ron felt dizzy.

"Hermione, I-" But she just held him as they both cried silently together.

"I _know_. I can see the colors too."

* * *

_**A.N**__ –This story isn't over yet. There's one more chapter to come and the epilogue. The fluff is pretty much over, but there's more angst to come. Also, I'm aware that Luna's twins are born much later than the other children from the epilogue are. Also, Daphne Greengrass didn't take her maiden name Malfoy in this story. Please acknowledge this as a poetic license from me, if you will forgive me for such. I also dropped here several hints about the next story I'm planning that is sort of a sequel to 'The Blues,' though I'm kind of working on a Teddy/Victoire story right now._

_More important acknowledgments: The name for Neville and Hannah's baby. I read it somewhere at a story at Checkmated. He was a minor, minor character, but I loved the name and I'm giving it to the Longbottoms in my story. Also, the Peverell Chateau wasn't created by me; it belongs to a TomBombadil's story at SU, "More than an epilogue." I never asked to borrow it, and I hope he lets it slide if I promote his story. __Love, S._


	4. What Comes After The Blues

**The Blues Are Still Blue - Chapter 4**

**  
What Comes After The Blues**

_"My love lies bleeding."  
_Thomas Campbell

_**A/N: I would like to dedicate this chapter to Becca. She lifted my spirits when I really needed support, and after her reviews, this chapter just flowed out of my hands.**_

_**Have a nice read, and don't forget to read this story while listening to good music like "Dream on" by Aerosmith or "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap.**_

* * *

Hermione tried to block out the pain from her sore neck, anxiety making her heart beat faster. She had never dealt well with waiting, and sitting at the Healer's office expecting to be called was trying, to say the least. She could barely maintain any semblance of calm, and the fact that Ron was viciously gripping her hand did not help the façade.

"Mrs. Granger-Weasley, please report to office seven. Healer Thomas is waiting for you."

Ron got up and helped Hermione out of her seat. It wasn't as if she needed any help, but she knew that assisting her in little things kept Ron calm.

The pair slowly made their way to office seven, Hermione batting down the morning sickness that had knocked her off her feet full-force five weeks ago. It was her first Healer appointment, and she couldn't have been more anxious to start her prenatal care - something she had never gotten the chance to have the first time she had been pregnant.

The barely controlled fear she had been carrying around over the last couple of months had nearly paralyzed Hermione during this part of her pregnancy. She had been so terrified of being sabotaged by her own body once again that she could barely function, and was unable to get out of bed for fear of doing something wrong and thereby hurting the baby.

And Ron… He had been a saint, to put it mildly. With his quiet way of loving her, he made Hermione feel less nervous about the baby. He calmed her aching heart just by sitting with her, holding her and promising - with his head buried in her curls - that everything would work out for them this time.

His solicitude came across in how he would buy strange food at random hours for her, or in the way he kept insisting on buying the baby clothes Hermione wasn't quite sure they were going to use, and she would tremble with the emotions that those tiny shoes and shirts aroused in her.

Ron also talked to her abdomen when he thought she was asleep, and the conversations usually went like this:

"Hullo there, little guy. Your mum was a wreck today; she really wants you. We already love you so much, and if you could just do Daddy a favor, it would be great. Just hold on while you're in there, all right? Grab on as if it's your broomstick at the Quidditch World Cup, and _do not_ let go until you hear your mummy scream like mad for you to leave. I love you, Bean. Try not to give your mum more trouble; this nausea thing murders my appetite in the mornings, and you know how your daddy loves breakfast."

Then Ron would kiss her belly and wrap one hand around it protectively before falling asleep. Hermione would then place a hand on top of his and cuddle into his already snoring form, praying for her baby to listen to his father like she used to listen to hers when she was a little girl.

Healer Thomas was already there when Hermione and Ron entered office seven, and it almost was the shock of Hermione's life when she saw _him, _Dean Thomas, their former classmate, who was also, apparently, their obstetrician!

"Ron, Hermione, it's a pleasure to see you here." His warm smile showed the truth in his statement.

"Dean, you're an ObGyn wizard?" Hermione was shocked beyond words. The last she had heard, Dean had been administrating Quidditich Supplies.

"Yes, and you're my first patient." Dean's sincere smile didn't falter at the sight of Ron's flabbergasted expression and Hermione's trembling hands. "I took night courses while I worked at Quidditch Supplies."

"I always reckoned only witches were midwives," Ron sniggered. "Isn't this a little bit of a joke?" Hermione elbowed Ron. _How insensitive of him to tease Dean about his sexuality!_

"Cormac told me the same thing when we first started dating, and you know how butch he can be." Dean winked at them, not at all affected by Ron's ribbing. "But the fact that I'm gay did help eliminate some of the prejudices that male ObGyns deal with."

"And we really are your first patients then?" Hermione asked, aware that her eyebrows were shooting up as they did when she was either skeptical or worried.

"First one flying solo," he announced proudly. Was that supposed to make them feel better? "There's no need to worry, Hermione. I don't have a diploma yet, but I take it you don't mind being my test case, do you?" Dean laughed at Ron and Hermione's expressions. "I'm messing with you, mates! Ron, I always thought you liked a laugh."

_Not when it comes to my wife and my baby, I don't, _Ron thought, but only said, "I see Seamus's sense of humor rubbed off on you, mate."

"Oh, it rubbed off, all right!" Dean and Ron laughed hysterically at their antics. "Merlin forbids Lavender from hearing this, though. Her mind is always in the gutter, bless her, but I guess that's why Seamus married her instead of prim and proper Padma."

Hermione suddenly feel very uncomfortable and changed positions in the plump chair. Dean snapped back into his professional demeanor immediately.

"Did you know I helped with Lavender's delivery? Her water broke while we were watching Puddlemere United play the Montroge Magpies. It pissed Seamus off, but the look on his face when Margo slipped out…" Ron grimaced and Hermione winced as he nearly crushed her hand.

"First prenatal consult, uh?"

Hermione nodded.

"This is a big deal, luv. Come; sit here on this bed." He motioned her to an adjoining room painted in soft blue and white hues, adorned with moving pictures of fetuses in several stages of development and a very graphic photo of a birth that made Ron's freckles stand out against the paleness of his face.

"How far along are you?"  
"9 weeks. My last period was in the middle of January," Hermione informed Dean. "I was told to wait until I was nearly three months far along to do this."

"She reads far too many pregnancy books." Ron rolled his eyes, earning him a whack on the back of his head. Surprisingly, it had come from Dean, even though Hermione had meant to.

"Thank you, Dean," Hermione said with a satisfied smile.  
"You're welcome, Mummy." Hermione beamed at him. "You read all the books you want. It's important to be informed, especially if it is your first pregnancy."

Hermione's smile faltered.

"It isn't. I miscarried on my first."

Dean's face fell. "I'm sorry," he said sympathetically. "How far along were you? Was it recent?"

"Not really; it was almost three years ago, and we've been trying ever since. It was right before the first checkup."

Ron squeezed her hand. The miscarriage was hard for her to talk about, but it was getting easier. Hermione knew the pain and the fear would never go away, but she knew that it would fade into the background when she finally got to hold Bean, as Ron called their baby.

"This is very important. We're going to pay special attention to this one, but it's a good sign that you've come this far along. You do know that, right?"

Hermione nodded, the smile slowly inching its way back up her face. She had hoped that the immediate danger was behind her, but she couldn't help but feel apprehensive until she knew for sure that everything was going as it was supposed to.

"Now, I'm going to perform an accuracy spell to learn the exact date you conceived and your estimated due date. You might feel your stomach warm up, but it's pleasant, so there's no need to worry. It won't hurt or bother the baby."

Dean performed complicated wand movements and Hermione saw a golden light shoot up from Dean's wand to her not-so-flat stomach. A little screen materialized in front of the bed she was lying on and a blurry image in black and white appeared.

Ron looked at her, amazed, and she could practically hear his thoughts. "_We made this."_

Hermione turned to Dean, searching his face for signs and saw his lips contract into a thin line. Her heart missed a beat and she saw his lips form an ominous word.

"Oh."

"What?" Ron gulped. Hermione could feel the tears coming, but she needed to remain in control before learning what was wrong. "What's the matter?"

"You said you were nine weeks along, right?" Dean asked, his eyes shining with…amusement?

"Yes. Dean, what's wrong?" Hermione asked, but he just shook his head. "Tell me what's wrong with my baby!"

"There's nothing wrong with her." He smiled softly. "You just miscalculated how far along you were. You are 16 weeks LMP, which actually means you're fourteen weeks into your pregnancy. The charm indicated that you conceived on December 31st, and your estimated due date is September 24th. The period you thought you had was just minor bleeding, which is common when the uterus suffers dilatation to make room for the embryo."

But Dean's words had stopped making any sense to Hermione.

"I'm _fourteen _weeks pregnant?" Hermione nearly shrieked at him.

"_Her?_"shouted Ron.

* * *

"You can't possibly ridicule a classical literary name like Cordelia, Ronald."

"Watch me, Hermione." She huffed and he re-positioned her feet on his lap while rubbing her swollen ankles. "Cordelia sound like a future Aunt Muriel in the making."

"What do you suggest, then, Mr. Dictionary-Of-Baby-Names?" she scoffed at him. "We should just keep calling her Bean, after your love of what? Food?"

"What about Ella?" Hermione purred as his skillful fingers alleviated the aching she had been feeling. "It's conventional, like you want it, and it's a pretty girl name."

"I want my daughter to be intelligent and hardworking, Ron. Prettiness is overrated. It didn't do Lavender any good."

"You just _had _to go there, didn't you?" Ron replied, laughing when she poked her tongue out at him. "That's mature, mother-to-be. What about Laura?"

"Veto. Sounds like the name of a haughty woman to me."

"You're just saying that because a girl named Laura bullied you at Muggle school."

"Maybe, but that doesn't make me any less right. What do you think about Beatrice?"

"Bloody hell, woman, why do you hate our child? Veto!"

"Fine! Desdemona?" Ron gave her an incredulous look. "No? Helena?"  
"I can live with Helena, but isn't that the same name as the girl that caused a war in one of the books I had to read before you actually agreed to make an honest bloke out of me?"

"Not exactly. Helena is a variation of the girl's name, Helen. She left her husband for Prince Paris, which, according to mythology, provoked the Trojan War."

"Oi, that's right! In that case, veto!"

"Veto? Why?"

"I won't name my daughter after a scarlet woman!" Hermione let out an exasperated groan at Ron's scandalized face. "Do you have any idea how much my mother would nag us about that?"

"As if she would ever find out!"

"Believe me, Hermione, there's no secret safe from Molly Weasley."

"But Helena was also the name of one of the heroines in a Shakespearean play!"

"Do you really want our baby girl to be known as the cause of a bloody war that lasted for over a decade and murdered a whole nation, just because she couldn't keep her pants on?"

Hermione grimaced. Ron had a point; crude, but still valid.

"I'm waiting for an answer here, Hermione."

"Veto."

"Good girl," he said as he patted her leg. "I guess we're back to Bean then."

"No, Ron! We've been having this discussion for over a month now, and it's nearly the end of June. We have almost no time to spare because of this endless discussion."

Hermione rubbed her impressive belly. She couldn't possibly get any bigger, could she? Luna was only a little bigger than her before the birth of her own two boys. Ron and Hermione had managed to get away from attending the birth at the last minute by telling Luna and Rolf she was experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions. Hannah and Neville had attended it as their replacements, and they still claimed they couldn't quite meet the parents' eyes for over three weeks.

"I think we should really consider my first suggestion," said Hermione, somewhat tiredly.

"Ronalda?" Ron's mouth was agape in horror, but Hermione couldn't comprehend why the suggestion of naming their daughter after him could upset Ron so much. "I thought we had talked about this! What kind of childhood would our girl have if her name were Ronalda? Little Ronna? _Do you even know George?_ Not in this lifetime, Hermione!"

"But, Ron, I-"

"This is _our child_ we're talking about, not Voldie's spawn!" He scowled at her. "I won't torture this baby with the female version of my name. Imagine if I wanted our son to be named Hermiono!"

"Fine!" Hermione snapped. "Ronalda's out of question, then! Still, we're nowhere near to being decided on a name yet and this baby is due in September! We just barely have two months left to decide on the nursery, middle names, godparents, the christening, the baby shower, the maternity leave plan-"

"Luv, you've _got _to relax!" Ron interrupted, exasperated. "It's unlucky to decorate the nursery until we get much closer to the birth. The godparents will obviously be Ginny and Harry, no question about it, and I thought, for a middle name… Viviane." He took a short pause for breath and added, as a second thought, "And I thought we were giving birth just like Luna did, you know…Naked, chanting, under the moonlight…"

"**Ronald Bilius Weasley!"** Hermione looked positively alarmed at the very thought. "Don't you _dare_ suggest this nonsense!" Ron chuckled and Hermione tried to swat his arm, but her impossibly huge belly prevented the move. "Viviane…That's a rather beautiful name, Ron. Classic yet pretty. First-name material, even. Where did you hear it?"

"Viviane was my mum's older sister."

"How come I've never met her before?"

"She died when she was nineteen; Mum was fifteen, I think." Ron looked upset at the thought. "My mum told me Viviane was the one that raised her and her brothers after my grandmother died, and she had wanted to be a Medi-witch."

"That's awfully tragic. Do you think she would mind if we named Bean after her sister?" Hermione looked concerned, and a little bit distraught. "I love the name, but if it brings back bad memories, I would rather not even mention it."

"I dunno, but I think it'll please Mum more than it would upset her."

"Viviane Granger-Weasley has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does."

* * *

"_Oh, Ron!" _Molly Weasley gave her son a crushing hug and turned to Hermione to do the same, but since her belly stood in the way, Molly contented herself with kissing her daughter-in-law on the cheek. "_Hermione! _I couldn'tbe happier! _Viviane_! A beautiful name for a beautiful girl."

"For an intelligent girl too, Mrs. Weasley."

"I've told you many times before that it's Molly, dear." She kissed Hermione's cheeks again. "And of course she'll be gifted. She has a genius for a mother, doesn't she?"

"OI, MUM! What about me?"

"Shush, Ronald. Hermione's doing all the hard work; she can get the credit."  
**  
**And with that, Molly Weasley waved them out of her kitchen and continued to cook, with Fleur and Audrey's help, the Sunday dinner.

* * *

"I saw it, Ron! Don't you lie to me!" Hermione was sobbing uncontrollably on her side of the door while Ron paced back and forth on his side. "You were flirting with Padma!"

"Hermione, will you stop with this rubbish already? I already told you that I wasn't flirting with Padma Patil!" Ron ran his hands through his hair, trying to control his rising temper.

"We were merely discussing the possibility of an interview for the Prophet about the new International Policy for Alliance and Cooperation Amongst Wizards that the Ministry is launching! You should know that! You were the one who participated in the commission to write it!"

"If you were indeed talking about IPACAW, Ronald-" Hermione's voice was as icy as she could muster through the tears, "-then why, in the sacred name of Merlin's pants, was she holding your arm and why were you touching her elbow?"

"You fancy her because you're repulsed by my whale-like figure! _Admit it_! I can't exactly blame you for this, you know!"

"It's nothing like that!" Ron groaned in frustration. "She tripped just before you spotted us, and she clutched my arm for support!" Ron banged his head against their bedroom door. "I was trying to help her regain her balance. It was _completely_ innocent!"

"But you're repulsed by me, aren't you?"

"I _never _said that!" Ron's frantic denial reached Hermione's ears through the door. "I try to touch you every day, but you always say you're too uncomfortable for…_that_…now! Do you know how many times it rained last month? Five times, Hermione! Five! And we never got to made love in it once! You know how much I was looking forward to that… But did you once hear me complain about it?"

"No," Hermione said in a small voice.

"That's because I wouldn't risk your and Bean's health over that, or anything. I love you both too much, Mione." Ron's voice was got softer and gentler. "You're wonderful, and so beautiful. I only want you, _only you_. And the fact you're carrying my baby makes me fancy you even more."

"You mean it?" Hermione voice was just above a murmur.

"Of course I do." Ron rested his head against the door, tired from trying to accompany the carousel of emotions his wife had been experiencing since the beginning of her third trimester.

Just then, the door creaked open for Ron to find a very hormonal and seven-month pregnant Hermione clad only in the lacy black, maternity-friendly knickers and bra he had bought her for their anniversary in March. She had never looked sexier and Ron's skin was crawling from the urge to ravish her there and then.

"Then _make _me believe."

That was the only signal he needed before pouncing on her and trying in earnest to make his wife understand that she was gorgeous to him in every _fucking _way.

* * *

Hermione was sitting at the Gynecology-Obstetrics ward of St. Mungo's waiting for Dean to call her into his office. It was the end of July, and her next consult wasn't supposed to be until the middle of August. But lately she had been feeling very tired, her vision was sometimes blurry and she had been having some nasty headaches.

Astoria Greengrass entered the Maternity Floor with a beautiful blond boy in her arms. She talked to the attending Healer and when she turned around and noticed Hermione, a kind smile graced her features and she marched resolutely towards the pregnant woman.

"Hi, Astoria, I wasn't expecting to see you here." Astoria kissed Hermione on the cheek and settled a fuzzy Scorpius on her lap. "Your son is beautiful. He has your eyes."

"Doesn't he?" She beamed at Hermione. "Other than that, he looks just like his father."

The said child was staring unblinkingly into Hermione's brown eyes, his hazel ones looking like carbon copies of the eyes of the tall, lean woman sitting next to her. It was very bizarre to see a baby version of Malfoy, but Astoria's eyes on his face had somewhat softened the final result, making the baby's face look kinder and more innocent than Draco's face must've looked when he was that age.

"Hullo, Scorpius." Hermione tried to resist the urge to talk baby-talk to him. She and Astoria were on friendly terms as colleagues, but they weren't intimate. "How old are you?"

"He recently turned ten months old," offered Astoria with a proud smile. "I can hardly believe it. It feels like it was just the other day that I was at the birthing centre trying to push this little guy out while Draco laid at the floor of the delivery room, out cold with the Petrificus Totalus I sent his way. He was getting on my nerves with the whole 'breathe, push' technique he learned in some Muggle book."

Hermione laughed at the idea of Malfoy reading baby books – Muggle ones, nonetheless – and the image of the only heir of Lucius Malfoy lying on the floor of St. Mungos while his wife gave birth to their son.

Astoria's mellifluous laughter joined her own, and Hermione tickled Scorpius's soft tummy until he gurgled at her. She blew strawberries on his face and was awarded with the dimples she saw on his cheeks. What an endearing child! Who knew Draco Malfoy could reproduce this well? She would have to tell Ron about it.

The baby launched himself towards Hermione's lap, but Astoria held him back.

"No, love," she said. "Aunt Hermione is having a baby, and you're too big for her lap."

"No, it's okay," Hermione said. She was aching to cuddle him. "We'll work it out, won't we, Scorpius? The baby won't mind either."

Scorpius sat on Hermione's knees and she bounced them up and down to make him laugh. Her heart ached for this kind of interaction with her own child, and she felt as if she was sitting at the edge of her chair waiting excitedly, but terrified, for the moment she would get to hold her own little girl in her arms. Bean kicked her hard in the bladder and Hermione winced.

"Baby?" Scorpius asked, his tiny fingers poking her protuberant stomach. Hermione nodded, still trying to catch her breath. "Hi."

And he kissed her belly. Bean moved, calm, as if her outburst a second ago was purely out of temper. _Ron's daughter, through and through_, Hermione thought with tenderness. Her eyes glistened with tears at Scorpius's tender gesture and the baby's reception to it. She got goose bumps and if she believed in such thing, she would've thought, in years to come, that that, right then, was foresight.

"Mrs. Granger-Weasley, please meet Healer Thomas in office seven."

She said her goodbyes to Astoria and Scorpius before joining Dean in his office. She had a worrying feeling that something wasn't quite right with her body, and she needed to learn exactly what it was.

* * *

"Other than the migraines and blurry vision, have you been experiencing any other symptoms?"

"Nothing unusual, mostly pregnancy related discomforts."

"Such as…?"

"Nausea, mostly. Sometimes I have trouble catching my breath, but I think it's because I'm _this_ wide. Lower-back pain. And my ankles are almost the size of bedposts."

"I've to run some more tests, but I'm suspecting that you're experiencing a condition called preeclampsia."

"Oh. I've read about that…" Her voice wavered. "It's dangerous, isn't it?"

"It can be very dangerous, Hermione." Dean squeezed her hand, trying to reassure her. "But if you follow my recommendations correctly, there's no reason to expect that this baby won't be born very close to its due date."

"What do I have to do?"

"First, immediate bed rest. You haven't taken your maternal leave yet, have you?"

"I was waiting to be a little closer to the end of my term. I didn't realize…"

"Hermione, don't blame yourself." Dean looked into her fretful eyes, understanding the cause of her nervousness. "You've done nothing wrong. Many mothers-to-be suffer from preeclampsia, and the stress you're putting on yourself will only serve to hurt you and your baby. You have to stay calm for your blood pressure to remain in check, okay?"

"Okay."

"Take three deep breaths now, luv." He patted her hand. "That's right. Feeling a little better?"

"Dean, if I take all necessary precautions, there's no reason to believe Bean won't be completely healthy, is there?"

"Nature will run its course, but we will make the most of it. We can try to keep this baby from being born too early, and there's a good chance we'll succeed. If we don't, the odds of your girl being born healthy are good too, since you're nearly there."

"Okay." Hermione let out another breath, forcing herself to remain calm for her daughter's sake. "Other than bed rest, what else do I have to do?"

* * *

"Ron, this is unacceptable." Upset, Hermione fidgeted helplessly in her favorite chair near the bookcase. "You cannot leave on this mission, not so close to Bean's birth."

"There's nothing I can do about it, luv." Ron sat by her, clutching her hands. "The chief is determined to have Harry and me in Washington for IPACAW's launch in America. I'll be back in a week. Bean will wait for her daddy to come home."

"Ron, it's the end of July! I'm due any second from September 3rd on!" Hermione sighed. "You'd better come home soon, Ronald Weasley. It's bad enough that you'll be missing my first weekly appointment on the 28th."

"I know, luv, I'm so sorry." He kissed her cheek, then her hands. A smile forced its way onto her lips and he burst into a happy-dance inside.

"It's not fair how you always try to distract me from arguments like this."

"Works every time, though." Hermione smiled sweetly and pinched his arse. "Oi! What was that for?"

"For being a prat!" she said with a laugh, and Ron kissed her indignation away. "A lovable prat."

* * *

"Since your mother's house is a forty-five minute ride from The Leaky Cauldron, your mum told me she would drive you there to meet Ginny, and then pick you up at five."

"I already know the plan, Ron," an annoyed Hermione told him as she packed her bags. "Then Ginny will Floo to St. Mungo's with me, and then Floo me back. It doesn't get much simpler than this. Why are you fretting so much about it?"

"I'm worried," Ron admitted. "It's just that we'll be oceans apart, and I have to leave you with your mother. She's great, but she keeps refusing to connect her house to the Floo Network for this week. What if you went into labor early?"

"Ron, I've been taking all the precautions Dean recommended." Hermione sat by Ron on their bed and grasped his hand, trying to make the frown on his forehead disappear.

"I'm resting a lot, keeping my blood pressure stabilized. Drinking lots of water, but not too much. Eating healthily, reading about what happens after the birth - the whole deal. Nothingbad is going to happen. Bean will wait for her daddy." She kissed his lips softly and placed his hand on her abdomen. "We deserve this gift, Ron. Our little blue, red and brown girl. She'll wait for her daddy. _I promise you."_

* * *

"Hermione," her mother asked, "how are magical babies born?"

She laughed, carefree. Her mother's questions about her magical granddaughter had streamed like waterfalls from the moment Hermione had stepped foot in her parents' house, four days ago.

"Exactly like every baby is born, Mum." Her mother smiled at her while driving, the light blue of her eyes shining with the excitement Hermione came to relate to when she talked about her daughter's baby. "Except that instead of anesthetic, we use potions to alleviate the pain."

"I can't wait to meet her," Hermione confessed. "I keep dreaming about what she'll look like. Will she have Ron's hair? My eyes? There are so many possibilities."

"It's terrifying, isn't it? But it's quite wonderful at the same time." Hermione nodded. That was exactly how she felt. "You were a pink baby."

"What?"

"When you were born, you were so pink. Rosy cheeks, pink complexion," Mrs. Granger said nostalgically. Hermione's mother was a practical and reserved woman, but she seemed to be feeling more emotional towards her daughter since she learned she was going to be a grandmother. "And you smelled like roses to Eddy and me. The loveliest baby we've ever seen."

"I'm sure every parent thinks that about their child," replied Hermione with a smile. However, it felt good to learn that her parents also thought that, once upon a time, she was the perfect baby. "That's why you always bought me those baths salts that smelled of roses?"

Her mother smiled at her kindly and nodded. Hermione felt comforted, and was happy that if she had to stay with someone while Ron was away, it was her mother. They used to drive each other mad, but those differences seemed so small compared to what was happening now in her life. Hermione hoped that the baby would help her mother heal the broken heart she had been nursing since Edward, her father, had died two years ago from leukemia.

"Thanks, Mum," said Hermione, squeezing her mother's hand, "for having me at your house, for taking care of me this whole week. It must've been hard, having to do everything by yourself while taking care of me."

"Don't talk nonsense child," her mother replied with a wink. "It was one of the best weeks of my life. You remind so much of Eddy-" Hermione blinked back tears. "- And it's comforting to have someone else to care for. It's been lonely for me."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said truthfully. "I wish I had known sooner. I'd have spent more time with you."

"Don't worry, dear." Her mother stopped at the red light. The Leaky Cauldron was already in sight. "You're doing your thing, and I think that's great. You'll be a great parent, Hermione. You and Ronald. I can see how much you love him. I couldn't have wished for someone better for you."

"Not even a nice regular dentist for a husband?"

"Not even the Prime Minister," her mother assured her. "There's no greater happiness than seeing your child achieve her goals and live a full life." Her mother put the Honda in drive. "Now, let's go get you checked out. And don't you forget to bring me back a sonogram picture of my granddaughter."

The light turned green, and her mother accelerated the car.

"Don't worry, Mum. I promise I won't forget."

That was the last thing Hermione said before the horror happened.

* * *

The truck appeared as if from nowhere and hit a nearby Fiesta's passenger side. The car turned over and knocked out Mrs. Granger's Honda Civic and a black Saab.

In the middle of the confusion, the deafening screams and the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, Hermione could only beckon up the energy to send a barely corporeal Patronus to Ginny before she succumbed to the darkness that called her seductively, with promises of protection from the pain that surely waited for her if she tried to stay awake.

_"Sing with me, sing for the years,  
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears.  
Sing with me, if it's just for today,  
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away"_

_Dream On - Aerosmith_

* * *

**_A.N: Cliffhanger, for I'm evil just like that! Will this story stay close to canon or will I go AU on you guys? Wait and see insert evil wink here. Don't forget to let me know what you thought about this chapter!_**


	5. My Blue Heaven Part I

**My Blue Heaven  
Part I**

_**"Every blade in the field,  
Every leaf in the forest,  
Lays down its life in its season,  
As beautifully as it was taken up."  
**_Henry David Thoreau

_**"Pictures and photographs  
Memories and windows  
Goodbyes and epitaphs  
Heartbeats and hellos."  
**_Heart In Hand – Vertical Horizon

**A.N.: **Hello, my lovelies! So here's the deal: the last chapter of The Blues turned out to be "heavier" than I had envisioned, so I decided it was best to split it into two different chapters. No stress, for they're already baked and outside the oven, cooling so you guys can taste it. I would like to thank all of you for your response to the last chapter. Your passionate reviews made me realize just how much you guys cared for these characters and their stories, which made me want to write the best possible ending for them (and now go on, pat yourselves on the back).

**I strongly recommend reading this chapter while listening to the soundtrack I've made available on my livejournal (the link is on my profile).** The songs, with their respective order are: Lost Along The Way – John Nordstrom Adagio For String – Samuel Barber and Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking – Snow Patrol.

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

"Ginny, what a surprise!" Angelina Weasley embraced her sister-in-law as she entered the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes store in Diagon Alley. "What brings you here?"

"Hey, Angie." Ginny beamed at the sight of Angelina's surprised but delighted face. "Since I'll be meeting Hermione at the Leaky in a little while, I figured I might as well pop over here, give my niece and nephew a kiss and buy Jamie one of those new yellow Pygmy Puffs. Why are you working the counter today?"

"Your brother had the brilliant idea of trying to teach our three year-old son how to breed a Wonder Witch love potion, even though I have forbidden him from doing it," Angelina answered with a smirk. "So, I put him under a house-arrest hex. George has to stay home, fix the kitchen, and take care of the children until Friday. This way, I get a break from watching both the children and George, while your stubborn brother and his son learn what happens when they disobey a direct order from the only sensible person in the house."

"You're more cunning than I thought," replied Ginny, looking at Angelina with newfound respect. "But I can safely assume that you already knew they wouldn't listen, can't I?"

"You know what people say about assum-" laughed Angelina, but she stopped midsentence, her eyes turning as big as saucers at the sight of something behind Ginny's back. "Ginny, look!"

A shining otter Patronus was standing right behind the red-haired woman, waiting for her attention. Ginny's heart skipped a beat, for she could have recognized that Patronus any day.

The silvery otter belonged to Hermione, its form looking grave and slightly dim in the cold light of the store. Ginny felt a shiver run through her spine and prayed for it to be nothing, just Hermione warning her she would be late, even though every fiber in her body screamed that this couldn't be good.

This couldn't be good at all.

* * *

Harry Potter had never been more afraid in his entire life. He had vanquished Lord Voldemort, broke into the Lestranges' vault at Gringotts, imprisoned many of the Dark Arts followers over the years and had managed to survive, practically unscathed, the 43-hour marathon that was the birth of his first child - which was a tricky thing to do while holding the hand of a very ill-tempered woman swearing she would nail his bollocks to a wall for putting her in that position.

Yet nothing in the past had ever felt as immeasurably scary and devastating as what Ginny had just told him. Petrified, he could do nothing but stare at his horror-struck reflection in the two-way mirror, replaying over and over in his head the look on his wife's tear-stained face and the words she had uttered. Words that would change his entire world and the lives of the ones he loved.

_"It's bad, Harry. It's pretty bad."_

How could he tell his best mate, his brother, that his pregnant wife had just been in a car accident and was injured an ocean away from him? How could he tell Ron that the same accident could take away the life of his mother-in-law, his beloved wife and his much-expected unborn daughter?

When he couldn't even digest the news himself, how was he supposed to deliver it?

_"Tell Ron and come quickly. We need you both here, Harry. Do what you must."_

They trusted him. Ginny. Linda Granger. Hermione. The entire Weasley family trusted him to be able to do this one thing right. For them. For Ron.

With a new sense of purpose, Harry got up and did what he had to do.

He got up to tell Ron the news that would haunt him for a lifetime.

"Ron, something bad has happened to Hermione…"

* * *

Feeling strangely nauseous, Hermione tried to recall the last minutes of her life. Keeping her eyes tightly shut, in a state between slumber and awareness, she could not quite identify her location by the foul smells that surrounded her, nor did the lack of comfort inform her of anything she should have known.

Where was she? Why couldn't she open her eyes without feeling dizzy? Why was it so difficult to move? Her head felt as light as a feather, though her body felt incredibly heavy.

_"Concentrate, Hermione!"_ she berated herself.

What had happened just a few meaningless seconds away from the Leaky Cauldron? What had happened while she was looking into her mother's light-blue eyes, feeling the love and acceptance she had craved her entire life?

Wrinkling her nose, or trying to, Hermione felt another pang of nausea dominate her body. Fighting the urge to throw up, Hermione finally realized what the smells were.

Burnt hair, blood and- burnt flesh? Shivering, she finally managed to open her eyes and focus on her surroundings. Startled, she noticed she was sitting in her mother's car, secured by the seat belt she had properly arranged before leaving for her consult. Her mother was nowhere in sight, and a feeling of dread washed over her body.

_"This cannot be good."_

Unfastening her seat belt, Hermione managed to crawl out of the ruins of the car Linda Granger had been driving. The shattered glass inside and out of the car barely scratched her skin, and even though she could smell blood, there was no one in sight and no signs of any violence, except for the destroyed car. Everything was dead silent and Hermione stood alone in the middle of the Muggle street.

_"This can't be good at all."_

Was her memory fuzzy, or had she just suffered a car accident? If so, where were the victims? Where was the blood she had tasted right before passing out? The deafening screams? Where was her mother? Why wasn't she around? Why was the only connection Hermione had with the accident the smells that still filled her nostrils and nauseated her so?

Why wasn't she hurt? Why - **Oh, no!** Where the hell had her pregnant belly gone? Something that big couldn't have just disappeared in the blink of an eye. Panicking, Hermione saw that she was wearing blue robes instead of the white maternity pants and the loose pink blouse she had put on before leaving the house. Her long brown, bushy hair was down, tickling her elbows, instead of perfectly controlled in the tight plait she remembered doing before getting in the car. This was completely wrong.

"Hermione?"

She turned around, and her heart nearly stopped – wait, was her heart beating at all? She couldn't tell, and when she saw who was standing in front of her, Hermione's knees almost gave out. She must have been hallucinating. Maybe she had passed out, and the drugs that the doctors were surely pumping into her system were making an appearance through this delirium.

Was she being betrayed by her own mind?

He just stood there, the last person she had ever expected to see again, looking at her with a gentle smile gracing healthy features. The last time she had seen this face, it was a hollowed, gaunt imitation of the face she loved.

His head had been bald and his skin had felt stony cold. Now, his cheeks were just as full as they used to be before the chemo, his dimples showing because of his broad smile. His skin looked as golden and healthy as before, and his chestnut-brown hair looked as full, curly and soft as she remembered it looking.

His light-brown eyes, almost hazel, brimmed with emotion, and Hermione found herself swaying with the force of his stare. It couldn't be... She still remembered what Harry told her had happened after Voldemort killed him. If she was with him, this could only mean that she was dead. Right?

Unable to control herself, she took a step ahead, almost meeting him halfway. From this distance, Hermione could nearly touch him, could _smell _his old smell of books, guitar polisher and aftershave.

This was truly him, not a figment of her befuddled brain. It was the most comforting, terrifying and heartbreaking moment of her life, for Hermione had believed she would never get the chance to do this, to see him again so _alive_. Hermione could no longer restrain herself from reaching out to him.

And she flung herself into his arms, his strong arms holding her close, his lips kissing the top of her frizzy head, just like he used to.

**"Daddy?"**

* * *

"Where's Mum? Am I dead? Where's my belly?" Hermione broke away from her father's embrace, anxious. If she was seeing her dead father, if she was _touching _him, she should have been dead. Nevertheless, she had to make sure, she _needed_ to know for sure if her Ron and her Bean were lost forever to her, or if she had a chance of going back to them.

Hermione let out a broken sob.

She couldn't let herself be dead. No, she wouldn't allow it. She had to go back to them. Ron would never forgive her if she didn't return, and she wouldn't forgive herself either. But she didn't want to leave her father, not yet, not when she had just gotten him back. No, she couldn't bear it.

"Not quite, Pet." His strong hands enveloped hers, warm and calloused, as real as they used to feel. "You're unconscious, but still alive. Barely, miraculously, alive. How can I explain this? You're 'hovering' in between consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death. And I was designated to meet you here and take care of you."

"Oh." Hermione's nausea and light-headedness had increased alarmingly in the past few…minutes? Hours? How can one measure time while 'hovering', as her father called it?

_"That's why I can still smell these…awful things."_

"Can we go somewhere else? Someplace less… unpleasant? These smells are making me ill."

"Of course, Pet." Hermione began to walk away from the wrecked Honda, followed by Edward's solid-built frame.

"Dad, where's Mum?"

"I'm not so sure, Pet." He looked at her worriedly. "I'm yet to be told what happens to Linda. But I have some ideas." He clasped her hands in his, and everything went dark for a moment, then it cleared.

They were standing at the backyard of a modest Edwardian house with a wooden swing gracing its porch and an ancient-looking oak tree shadowing the lovely and very familiar front yard.

"This is our old home!"

"I've always loved it here," Edward told her, heading to the porch swing. "Remember how your mother and I used to sit on this swing and drink tea while you read _Songs of Innocence?"_

"I was incredibly sad when Linda had to sell this house," Edward added with a pained smile. Hermione sat down next to him and started to rock the old porch swing back and forth, like she used to do as a little girl. "Although I do understand it was something she needed to do for herself. It must have been difficult to return to this place after my funeral. So many memories."

"My Granger girls always knew how to make the most difficult decisions, even if they were going to break your heart in the process."

Edward squeezed her hand, and Hermione still felt the pang of guilt every time one of her parents alluded to the time they spent in Australia without a single memory of a home or a child, while Hermione tracked down Horcruxes and tried to save the world alongside Harry and Ron.

"You've never let me tell you how sorry I was for tampering with your memories." Hermione did not mean to sound so bitter, but it came out that way nonetheless. "You always told me there was no point in apologizing."

"Because you shouldn't have to, Pet. You kept us safe by doing it." He smiled down at his little girl, who was not so little anymore. "I never held it against you. Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"But Mum held it against me." It was a painful truth, and the aloud admission of it didn't sting Hermione as bad as it had before. Edward didn't contradict her. "Besides, Dad, I _wanted _to apologize!" Exasperated, she let his hand go. "A moment hasn't gone by when I haven't felt guilty for doing what I had to do to save your lives." Her eyes prickled, but Hermione took a deep breath and continued on. "I've always felt like I betrayed your trust and love in me, and I've carried this around with me forever. You might've forgiven me, but Mum could never reconcile me with the same child that read William Blake while you strummed on your guitar. She never let her guard down when I was around, always sported this… guarded look, as if she was expecting me to do something…"

Hermione was completely in tears now. The shame she felt for confessing those thoughts, those childish fears of being un-loved and distrusted by the woman that gave her life made her whole body feel feverish and her hands tremble.

"Pet, just because your mother couldn't understand your choices, it never meant she loved you less." Edward hugged his teary daughter, praying that she would listen to him. She shouldn't have any lingering doubts about their affection, or it would only make it harder for her. If Edward was right, she was going to need all the faith she could summon for the hard path that lay ahead of them. "There have been a lot of things left unsaid between us for years, and there's nothing your mother or I can do to change that now. However, you just have to _believe _that our love for you has never diminished or faltered."

"Whether you were a witch or like us, you were still _our _daughter and we've loved you since we first laid eyes on you: our perfect little pink baby, smelling of roses, promises and uniqueness. That has never changed."

"And you have to believe this, because I won't be able to tell you any longer."

"And what does that mean exactly, Dad?"

"It means that I wasn't sure what was going to happen to you. But now… now I know. Have you ever heard of a state called transition?"

* * *

Ron could do nothing but gaze at her beautiful face and drink in the sight of the scratches on her arms, the rapid movement of her eyelids and the even rhythm of her breathing, her chest inflating and deflating because of it.

In and out. In and out. In and out.

It was the most painfully beautiful sight he had ever seen, for as long as he could remember.

Because if Hermione could bleed, if she could feel pain, and could move her eyelids, she was alive. If she was breathing, she was alive. She was alive, and would wake up at any second. But only when she was ready. On her own terms.

Hermione never did anything when it wasn't on her own terms.

That stubborn, beautiful and strong woman. If breathing wasn't so important, if he wasn't so mad at her right now, he would kiss her until they were both gasping for breath.

Ron knew Hermione was going to be fine. She **had **to be. She wouldn't abandon him like this, over something as random as a car accident, not when she had promised she would love him forever, that she would stay by his side until they were as senile, wrinkled and petulant as the old bat Muriel.

She could survive this. _They would survive this_. Hermione would wake up at any moment now, and he was going to take one look into her beautiful brown eyes and forget why he had been so worried. She would open her eyes. Ron was completely sure of it.

Hermione Granger-Weasley wasn't one to give up or give in. She fought for what she believed in, and she kept her promises. She had _promised _him love to last a lifetime and a lifetime of loving bickering matches. Hermione _promised _she would be fine, that the baby would be fine. That they would wait for him.

He was there now. Everybody was there waiting for her to wake up, except for Harry, who had accompanied Mrs. Granger to the Muggle hospital.

If Ron was there like he promised he would be, why wasn't Hermione keeping her own promise to him? Why wasn't she fine? Why wasn't she waking up?

The Healers told him there was the possibility of brain damage, but they couldn't be sure of it until Hermione woke up. If she ever did. They told him they needed to take the baby as soon as possible, so Bean could have a fair chance of surviving the birth and the accident.  
But nothing they said could make Ron give up on his Hermione. He _knew _her. He had faith in her. He had believed her when she had said forever,and he wasn't about to doubt this for a second. Not now, when they were about to have a child. And all Hermione had to do was wake up.

_"Nothing bad is going to happen. Bean will wait for her daddy."_

She had _promised_ him, and he _believed _in her.

_"We deserve this gift, Ron. Our little blue, red and brown girl. She will wait for her daddy. I promise you."_

And he would be damned if he didn't make sure she kept her promises.

* * *

**A.N: ****Hate? Love? Indifferent? I don't care, reviews are love! More to come as soon as I get the next two chapters beta-ed, but I will hold out on you if you guys deny me some love. ;D**


	6. Little Girl Blue Part II

**Little Girl Blue**

**  
Part II**

**  
****  
**_**"One night of magic rush  
the start a simple touch.  
One night to push and scream  
and then relief…  
Ten days of perfect tunes,  
the colors red and blue,  
we had a promise made…  
We were in love."  
**_Heartbeats – José González _**  
**_  
_**"If you were with me tonight  
I'd sing to you just one more time  
A song for a heart so big  
God couldn't let it live."  
**_Hear You Me – Jimmy Eat World

**AN:** I would like to dedicate this chapter to everyone that, like me, lost someone they deeply loved in the course of their lives. I hope I've done a fair job of portraying the feelings this loss can evoke. I also must stress the difference the soundtrack I've designed will make in the enjoyment of this chapter! The songs are available at my LJ; the link can be found on my profile. I also borrowed one line from the movie "Princess Bride." Don't sue me; I just own 200 books and an acoustic guitar!

The songs are Moonlight Sonata – Beethoven, Heartbeats – José González (for the birth), I Grieve – Peter Gabriel and Hear You Me – Jimmy Eat World. And now I present you the penultimate chapter of "The Blues Are Still Blue." Enjoy!

* * *

"What do you mean, 'transition'?" Hermione was nearly hysterical. "What has that got to do with anything?"

"Transition is a state that souls go through when their physical body dies." His voice was distant, as if they were standing far away from each other. "A soul has to adapt to this... life. It's a difficult thing to do, especially when one's death is sudden and traumatic."

"Why are you telling me this, Dad?" Hermione was on edge, a terrible feeling of dread enveloping her. "Am I going to die? Am I about to go into transition?"

"No. You're going to live." A relieved sigh emerged from her lips before she could stop it.

"But your mother won't."

* * *

"But I thought..." Waves of loss and grief tried to engulf her, making it nearly impossible to form a coherent thought. It was as if she were drowning, struggling to keep breathing, but barely staying afloat. "Mum is... she won't survive?"

"Easy now, Pet." Edward patted her hand. "Don't upset your baby over this."

"Baby?" A pang of guilt washed over Hermione. How could she have forgotten about Bean, if even for the briefest of moments? "Is she all right? Why am I not pregnant while hovering? For how long have I been unconscious?"

"Your daughter will be fine." He smiled at her, but the guilt and the doubt still lingered. She needed to see her child, to feel her moving in her womb, to make sure she was as healthy as expected. "Her soul is very beautiful, Hermione. I'm honoured to be her grandfather."

"You've met her?" Astonished, Hermione could do nothing but look at Edward, her mouth agape in the most ungraceful manner. "How? When? Can I…"

"You want to?" asked Edward gently. Hermione could only nod. "I'm afraid we'll have to keep this brief. I need to go to your mother, and your girl is preparing to be born, you know."

"I'm giving birth?" Hermione hated how idiotic and easily impressed she sounded in this "state." But could anyone really blame her? She was talking to her dead father about her unborn child. Her mother was dead somewhere beyond her reach. It was too much to take in, to absorb in mere moments. "Wouldn't I have to be conscious for that? Is Ron there? He promised he would be."

"He's by your body's side, very much afraid for your life and for your daughter's." Edward's smile was somewhat constricted. "He's also terribly angry at you for not waking up. But I'm quite sure all will be forgiven when you do."

"I- I- " Hermione couldn't find words for the first time in her life. "I can't breathe."

"You're hovering. Of course you can't."

"Dad!"

"Forgive me, Pet. I take it you meant it figuratively."

"Of course."

Edward chuckled and Hermione couldn't help but join in. Then she remembered what he had told her, and the feeling of loss washed through her.

"I'll never see Mum again, will I?"

"Not in the truest sense of seeing, no." Hermione began to cry in earnest at this. "Your mother has moved on into the afterlife, but she'll never truly leave you. I haven't. You see me every day when you look in the mirror, when you read a poetry book or when you smell roses. You'll see us, me and your mother, in your children too. And we'll look after you and your family in the best way we can."

"You already know death cannot stop love, Pet." He hugged her for the last time until they had to meet again. Until it was her time to be on this side. Edward didn't want to let his little girl go, but she didn't belong there by his side. Not yet. Not for a long time, he hoped. "All it can do is delay it for a while."

"Now let's see about you meeting this daughter of yours."

* * *

"Grandpa!" A little girl with dark red curls materialized out of thin air and began to run in their direction. Her vibrant freckled face was rosy with excitement, her cute button nose scrunched up from the effort of running, a large dimpled smile gracing her delicate features as she ran towards them with all her might.

Hermione was sure that if her heart were beating in its hovering state, it would have definitely stopped in the moment she saw that little girl. Her eyes were shaped like Ron's, though they had the same color as Hermione's mother, the lightest shade of blue. She had Edward Granger's thick, curly hair framing a heart-shaped face with a slightly broad forehead and a delicate chin that resembled Hermione's, pink cherub-ish lips and pronounced dimples.

It was the most adorable face Hermione had ever seen, and from the moment she saw it, she knew it belonged to her and Ron's daughter.

Bean stopped in front of Edward Granger, her hands reaching out for him. He picked her up and smiled kindly at Hermione's flabbergasted expression. His redheaded granddaughter lazily played with his own chestnut-brown curls, her head softly resting on his shoulder, her small arms encircling his neck.

She looked utterly spent, as if the sprint she took towards them had tired her greatly. She was struggling to stay awake, but undoubtedly failing.

"I'm tired, Gramps." She finally seemed to notice Hermione's presence, and gave her a impossibly large smile. "Sing Hughie's song to me, Mummy." Hermione thought she was going to faint when Edward placed the beautiful child in her arms.

"Dad…" Hermione looked at her father questioningly. How did her girl already knew who she was? Which song was she supposed to sing? And more importantly, who was Hughie? "What does she mean by that?"

But Edward just gave her a cheeky smile and began to sing the same song he sang to her when she was just as little as Bean and used to fall asleep to the sounds of his deep baritone voice that was now filling the porch of Hermione's first home with its richness:

_"Little boy blue, come blow your horn  
The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn.  
Where is that boy who looks after the sheep?  
Under the haystack fast asleep  
Will you wake him?  
Oh no, not I. For if I do he will surely cry."_

* * *

"We have to deliver this baby right now, Ron." The solemn look on Dean Thomas' face told him that this was the right decision to make. "There's no more time for discussion. Hermione's suffered placental abruption, and while it's mild and we've given her a potion to control the bleeding, we've been monitoring the fetus' heart rate and there's some evidence that the baby is undergoing fetal distress. We have to act on it, right now.

"If we don't perform the C-section your daughter will die, and so will your wife."

"I want to wait for Hermione… she would've wanted be awake for this. She won't forgive herself if she's not." Ron gripped his wife's immobile hands viciously. He believed in her. She had promised him. "When will she open her eyes?"

"We can't tell." Dean knew that time was sliding quickly through their fingers. They needed to act fast. "She might wake up in five minutes or in five years. It all depends on her. We can't tell for sure when or if she will. What I do know for sure is that if we lose any more seconds discussing this, your child may never wake up or open her eyes. Do you want this to happen, Ron? Do you want Hermione to wake up and discover that your child, _your daughter_, was lost forever because you wanted to wait for her?"

Ron's already pale complexion turned green. He understood what Dean was trying to tell him - could hear the truth in his words. But how was he supposed to do this alone? How could he handle all of this without Hermione by his side, encouraging him, telling him everything would be all right?

_"Please, Hermione, wake up."_ He burrowed his head into the brown mane of hair on the pillow. _"I can't do this without you. You need to open your eyes."_

"Ron?" Dean performed the cleaning and anaesthetic spells on the woman lying on the cotton-white bed, apparently indifferent to the hell her husband was living through, unaware of what was about to happen in the room.

_"Open your eyes, Hermione!"_

* * *

"You have to go now, Pet." Edward's smile had faded into an anxious grimace. "Your daughter needs you to go back. Your husband needs you to wake up."

"Dad…" Could Hermione find in her heart the strength to say goodbye all over again? And what about her mother? Would she get the chance to see her with life in her eyes for the last time? Or she would have to say goodbye to the empty shell that used to be the woman's body? She couldn't even think about it.

"I know it's difficult, love. But remember the possibilities that lie ahead for you and your family. Look at the beautiful child asleep in your arms." Bean still slept soundly, curled into Hermione's body. "Listen to your husband."

_"Please, Hermione, wake up. I can't do this without you. You need to open your eyes."_

"Ron!" Hot tears tracked down her cheeks. The sound of his voice, almost unrecognizably broken, brought her back to her senses. She could hear the tears and the agony. What had she put him through? What had she done?

_"Open your eyes, Hermione!"_

"Oh, Ron…" She sobbed. She had to go back. She had promised him they would be together for this, and Hermione tried never to break her promises. "Daddy, I need to go back! I want to go back! Please, help me!"

"You'll find it quite easy, Pet. Just close your eyes…" He smiled kindly at her, his eyes filled with a mix of sadness, pride and loss. They wouldn't get another chance to say goodbye. Hermione wouldn't get the chance to say goodbye to her own mother at all, and that hurt him worse than anything had so far.

"Close your eyes and let the warmth envelope your soul. You're already halfway there. Sense the strong pull of your body. Don't be scared, love."

"Don't think about what you're losing by leaving, otherwise you won't be able do it," he instructed her. "Think about what you're gaining. The smile of your child, the love of your husband, and the family you've built together."

"I miss you, Dad," Hermione told him, feeling slightly detached from that strange place and the child that still rested in her arms. "I miss you every day."

"I miss you too, Pet." She could hear his voice as a distant whisper, like the caress of the wind running through the branches of a tree. "I love you, and don't you ever forget it. Now, hurry up and open your eyes, Hermione."

"Open your eyes."

This wasn't her father's voice at all. This terrified tenor voice belonged to someone else entirely. Her Ron. Gratefulness blazed through her body. She had made it. She had come back to him. She had kept her promise after all.

"Please, Hermione, just open your eyes."

And she did.

* * *

Ronald Weasley wasn't one to believe in miracles. Even though he was best friends with someone whose survival was a miracle in itself, he knew the reasons behind it, the logic of it, and that made it easier to accept them.

He had also married the most intelligent witch of his age, and her thirst for knowledge and love of indisputable facts had rubbed off on him somewhat.

No, Ronald Weasley believed in a lot of things, but miracles wasn't one of them. However, when Hermione opened up her beautiful eyes, all scepticism was tossed aside. She had kept her promises. She had come back to him, to _them_.

And that was all that mattered.

Of course, Dean had other priorities. When he saw Hermione awake, he was both agitated and baffled, and other Healers burst inside their room and began to perform complicated wand movements. Ron couldn't bring himself to care about the now crowded room or the people prodding his wife. He didn't want to try and learn what this meant, because she was there, and this was all he needed.

Ron could only see her eyes, earnest and dazed, but somehow focused on his. He could only feel her hands gripping his. He could only notice the small smile she was sending in his direction, and the grimace of pain that replaced it as soon as Susan Macmillan, St. Mungo's Neurologist Healer, asked Hermione some questions, checking for brain damage. Ron already knew she was fine.

Hermione kept the promises she made.

"Hermione, are you listening to me?" Susan waved her hands in front of his wife's pale face. "I'm going to check your pupils now. Can you remember which day of the week it is? Are you in any kind of pain?"

Ron barely registered her answers. Hermione's soft voice, weak and hoarse because of the drugs, was responding to Susan's questioning .

But he saw nothing but her, felt nothing but her warm hand in his, her eyes bright and alert to their surroundings. Hermione was there. She had come back. And Ron could feel in his very soul that somehow they would be just fine.

That they would rise above this.

* * *

Dean performed a precise incision spell with his wand, cutting through Hermione's abdomen and uterus with one clear motion. Even though she couldn't see or feel anything, Hermione was shaking with nerves. Ron was still gripping her hands viciously, as if he was afraid of ever letting her go again.

He looked at her, his eyes filled with tears, wonder and sadness. There was something he wasn't telling her, and in the midst of all the confusion, Hermione couldn't help but feel that there was something she was forgetting to remember…

Or was it someone?

Her memory fuzzy, Hermione could only recall some of the impressions of the dreams she had had while unconscious. Fear. Awful smells. Confusion. Light-brown eyes brimming with compassion and love. Peace. The pungent smell of after shave. An old porch swing, creaking lightly under the weight of two people. Shock. Exquisite eyes and the smell of roses. Loss. The feeling of never getting something back, of having to let go of a very important thing. Ron's voice calling her back to him, back to where she belonged.

What could those things mean? Did they really matter, when Ron was looking at her with so much love written all over his face?

When she could feel the doctors moving around her body, working to bring the child she already loved so much to life? But Hermione couldn't help but feel she was letting something important, something vital, escape from her grasp.

What in Merlin's name was it?

"She's here!" Dean announced, seconded by a weak cry of awareness and bewilderment filling the room in the St. Mungo's Maternity Ward. "We'll perform a cleansing and immunization spell, but you'll see her in a second, Mummy."

Fierce pain hit her body, scorching and unexpected, like a burn that tried to extinguish her existence with its power.

_That_ was what she was forgetting. The most important word of all.

Mother.

Where was her mother? How come Ron hadn't mentioned her? Why could she feel her eyes fill with knowing tears of loss and grief? How come this one word, the one that should've meant protection and happiness, could only make her want to curl up and focus on her breathing instead?

Ron read the pain in her eyes. His blue ones softened immediately, going from pure ecstasy to an almost unbearable sorrow in seconds. He swallowed hard, and gripped her hand even more tightly. She understood the message. He wanted her to know that he was there, trying to soften the blow she was about to receive.

"When the collision happened," Ron began, his voice barely above a whisper, "your mother… she wasn't wearing a seat belt."

Hermione wanted to be wrapped in the comforting world of unconsciousness again, protected from the bitter truth that was escaping her husband's lips. Her mind screamed that she didn't want to hear what he was about to say.

"The force of the impact expelled her body from the car, and she hit her head on the concrete."

Salty tears ran down her face, but Hermione could only see Linda's expression when she had talked about her while they were in that car.

_"You were a pink baby."_

"The Muggle Healers told us that there was nothing they could've done for her." Ron's own tears touched their intertwined hands, but Hermione could hardly feel it. She wasn't there, in this room, having a baby. She wasn't there, listening to her husband talk about the death of her mother. She was back at the car, back with Linda Granger, listening to some nostalgic memories about her birth.

_"When you were born, you were so pink. Rosy cheeks, pink complexion."_

"They couldn't help her. They said that a head injury as severe as hers caused painless, immediate yet severe brain damage. I'm sorry, Hermione, but she will never wake up again." Ron's eyes were filled with compassion. "They told Harry she didn't suffer, luv. But I wish you hadn't had to find out like this."

The other Healers sealed the cut on her abdomen, then cleansed her body and the entire room. The sheets that had been stained with blood were an immaculate shade of white again. It was wrong. They should've been black.

_"And you smelled like roses to Eddy and me. The loveliest baby we've ever seen."_

Dean approached them, holding a small, red screaming thing with a huge smile etched upon his face. He placed it on Hermione's belly, and the red, screaming thing quieted down at the skin-to-skin contact.

_"I'm sure every parent thinks that about their child."_

Through the haze of pain and denial, Hermione risked a look into the thing's face. Its blue eyes looked at her with curiosity. Light blue eyes, of a shade that belonged to the eyes of someone Hermione loved and had lost. But weren't newborns' eyes supposed to be misty grey? Weren't newborns supposed to be all wrinkled and loud, demanding to let the world know about their arrival?

But this one, this girl, she had this peaceful look on her face. Her eyes concentrated on Hermione's face with such an uncanny determination that it scared her. Eyes that looked at her as if they recognized her. A sudden, overwhelming feeling pooled in Hermione's stomach and dispersed through her bloodstream. Was it calling this girl? Was it claiming this baby as her own kin? Instinctively, Hermione reached awkwardly for the child she had carried inside of her during those eight long months of pregnancy. The girl fit in her arms as if she were always meant to be there. Hesitantly, Hermione brought her closer to her chest and looked into her pink face, into those blue eyes.

Someone snapped a photograph, and a recent memory came to the front of her mind.

_"Don't you forget to bring me back a sonogram picture of my granddaughter."_

The girl's hair tickled her chin, and Hermione felt as if she had been slapped right across the face with a whiff of a familiar scent that overpowered the smells of the room, breaking her out of the haziness that numbed her mind and feelings.

It was a smell that she had smelled before, and yet it was so pure, unique and pungent that it made her weep, suddenly assaulted by bittersweet memories.

Memories of a beautiful black-haired woman with startlingly blue eyes telling her stories about Greek legends and mythic creatures while she tried very hard not to fall asleep, clinging to every moment that she got to listen to that fascinating woman that she called Mum, telling her the most fascinating stories.

Memories of splashing happily in a bathtub, surrounded by that same scent, while the woman giggled helplessly in the background, trying unsuccessfully to reprimand Hermione about wetting the floors of the bathroom. Memories of sweet summers sitting near an oak tree, reading poetry books and sunbathing while her parents talked about everything and nothing, just content and in love with each other and the life they had created together.

Memories of being hugged by her mother, enveloped with the most overpowering scent she had ever smelled until that little pink girl was placed into her arms.

The smells of roses.

_"Don't worry, Mum. I promise I won't forget."_

And the Healers took the girl away.

* * *

The subsequent two weeks passed at a blurry and excruciating pace, in Ron's opinion. There was a lot to be done, about everything, too much to be dealt with and little desire to move at all.

There were some pressing concerns. Like preparing the Red Cottage for the baby, something they had thought they still had weeks to get ready for, since Hermione's due date was September 23. But Bean had come earlier than expected, nearly a month earlier on August 27; and even though they had been warned about the real possibility of an early labor, it wasn't something they had tried to focus on. They had tried to stay positive and hope for the best.

They had been optimistic about the whole ordeal, concentrating on the miracle that they were having a child instead of being cautious about the risks of it.

Which was an incredibly un-Hermione thing to do, Ron realized, but they'd done it anyway. He had dealt with Hermione's panic attacks, and up until _that_ moment, everything had seemed to be going along fairly well.

So there was lots to do concerning their baby, from maternity licenses to extensive readings about the effects of traumatic births and premature babies. Ron was truly overwhelmed with the reality of being a dad. He had only concentrated on what to do before the birth, not after it. Besides, planning ahead was Hermione's specialty, not his.

Then there was the Babies Magical Care Unit. Seeing Bean, his tiny baby girl, lying in that bizarre-looking cot - or as Dean called "incubator" - made Ron's heart clench and nearly break every time he and Hermione visited her.

Being at the BMCU was always hard, but the Healers kept insisting that Bean was gaining weight and growing, getting stronger, and that she always slept more peacefully after he visited and talked to her about random things like the future or how much he already loved the fragile, tiny human being.

Getting Hermione to hold their daughter was a different matter altogether.

While Ron's mum couldn't get enough of her newest granddaughter (_She has the most beautiful eyes!_), his wife did her best to avoid physical contact with their daughter. She kept questioning Dean about Bean's welfare and she visited the BMCU every day to see her. She didn't hold her, though. She just looked at their girl from afar, fretting about her breathing, her weight, her complexion. Never cradling her.

He was still scared by Hermione's response to her mother's death. The lost stare she sported while he tried to comfort her, the blank look on her face when Dean placed their daughter on her belly… _that look_ in her eyes - they still haunted him whenever he tried to fall asleep.

But she'd held their baby and cried bitter tears for the mother she'd lost so unfairly, and suddenly Ron had thought things would get better. Hermione had just cried harder when the Healers took Bean away; she didn't put up a fight about it, like he had expected her to do.

She did nothing but stare at the bare, white walls of her room for the next day. She was startled when someone asked her direct questions, but didn't respond in any way otherwise, only asking Ron endless questions about Bean's progress. The Healers kept telling Ron it was the trauma talking, but deep down he knew, he could feel something was broken in his wife's heart. What was worse, he had no idea how to fix it.

When Dean tried to talk her into breastfeeding Bean two days after the birth, Hermione blatantly declined. She let the Healers do the spell to collect her breast milk, but refused to feed their daughter or even hold her, saying that the girl _"smelled strange"_ and she didn't felt comfortable doing anything but watching her.

After the first five days, she began to eat solids again and manifested the desire of holding the baby for the first time since the delivery. Her wish was promptly granted. Her wobbly arms held the fragile little girl with caution, and Hermione softly whispered to their baby an old nursery rhyme about a little hayward boy, tears streaming down her face.

But when the adorable girl opened her blue eyes and gripped Hermione's finger with impressive strength, several things flickered across his wife's torn face in response.

Longing.

Guilt.

Loss.

Hermione closed her eyes and looked away, begging Ron to be taken back to her room at the Maternity Ward. After this visit to the BMCU, it took her two days to return there again. She still hadn't mentioned her mother since the baby's birth, and it concerned Ron.

Ron tried to focus on more urgent matters. Like how to deal with Linda Granger's body. He understood very little of Muggle life and medicine, but Harry explained to him that she was being administered some sort of Draught of Living Death, being kept in a deep-sleep state. But Harry also told him that she was never going to wake up, that she was in palliative care until Hermione was ready to decide how to proceed with her mother.

So Ron divided his time amongst being with his wife, visiting his daughter, and being with his unconscious mother-in-law. He knew that she wasn't really there, that she couldn't hear him, but he talked to her any way. He couldn't help it.

He told her about his days, about Hermione. He told Linda how he truly was, feelings he mostly kept to himself when somebody asked how he had been doing. Bean was still underweight and the Healers had told him she had asthma. Hermione had good days and bad days. Mostly bad days. Ron couldn't help but to be worried out of his mind.

_What if his daughter didn't survive? What if she took a turn for the worse?_

_What if Hermione never recovered from this?_

The damage that the crash caused to Linda's brain was irreversible. They had to let her go. Ron didn't fancy dealing with it, but he and Hermione were the next-of-kin, so it was their legal obligation to decide what to do with the body of the woman he deeply admired and had secretly feared. She was now nothing but a empty shell of herself.

There was no spark, no life, just a passive body resembling his mother-in-law connected to Muggle machines and cared for by Muggle Healers that kept her breathing, fed and clean.

This wasn't the kind of life he wished anyone to have, because it wasn't life at all. Ron knew enough about Linda to understand that the energetic woman she used to be would feel impossibly confined in these conditions. Ron knew Hermione would feel the same way about the matter, but he still wanted to wait for her to come around.

Hermione flinched and ignored him when he first mentioned the issue. That was on the first week after the accident. The second time he mentioned it, she screamed herself hoarse, yelling that what happened with her, Bean and Linda was her fault. That if she had been a better witch, a better _daughter_, she might've done something to stop this from ever happening. That she could've done something to prevent the accident or protect her mother and her baby.

That if she hadn't failed, her mother would be there, healthy, _alive_, and Hermione would still be blissfully pregnant, preparing for the birth of their daughter. Ron hadn't felt more helpless up until that moment, and he was ashamed to admit it that he was also very angry at Hermione. He had never wanted to yell at her to stop this nonsense immediately. He had wanted to shake her, to make her understand that feeling guilty wouldn't help at all - that it would only make it worse. Nothing would bring Linda Granger back.

But he just stood there and listened to every word she had to say, listened to her point out the countless ways she could've saved her mother. He let her berate herself to the brink of exhaustion; he _knew _he just had to be a silent witness to this excruciating grief, even if it hurt her to do this, even if it hurt him to watch her do it.

So he let her get the anger out of her system, hoping that then she would get better, that they would get better. And after the anger, there were tears, and she had let him cradle her in his arms until she fell asleep - until the dreams erased the reality and rawness of her loss. He had thought that after this, she would start getting better.

Only that she didn't.

The third time he had pressed the matter, she gave him a rather puzzling answer that left him disconcerted, to say the least.

_"Listen, I know this is urgent but I can't disconnect her right now! I haven't had a chance to say goodbye to her like I did to my dad, love. If it was possible for me to do this with him, why wouldn't it be possible for me to talk to my mum too? Maybe if we just waited a little longer for her to be ready, Ron…"_

However, Ron remembered quite well how he had spent his days after the Hogwarts Battle, wandering around aimlessly at The Burrow, expecting Fred to show up at any minute. He also remembered that Mr. Granger had died unexpectedly, after the Muggle doctors had claimed him healed - _In remission, _Hermione explained - and everyone expected him to recover. But he had died on his sleep, peacefully, a week later. So it was impossible for Hermione to have had any chance of saying goodbye to him personally, right?

No, Ron was pretty sure Hermione was just confused and afraid, her memory playing tricks on her - making her concentrate on this intangible possibility instead of dealing with the painful fact that the last parent she had left was lying, unresponsive, on a hospital bed.

He was angry as well. At life, for being this unfair, unpredictable and cruel. He was angry at his boisterous family, always visiting them, always asking questions he couldn't answer.

He was mostly angry at Linda Granger.

_"How can you drive your whole life as a Muggle, and not understand the importance of seat belts? I'm a wizard, and I understand them! Hermione understands it! How could you not? Why did you do this to your own daughter? Leaving her like this, without a warning, when she needs you the most? I never took you for careless or irresponsible, Mrs. Granger. But this was just plain stupidity."_

Having a go at his comatose mother-in-law was, apparently, as frowned upon in the Muggle world as it would be in the magical world. When Harry had picked him up at the hospital, Ron wanted to disappear, to run as far away from his life as fast as he could.

But then there was Hermione and Bean. Beautiful, fragile, sweet Bean. And while Hermione wasn't herself, Ron admonished himself for losing faith. If he couldn't trust them, couldn't trust her, then he was more thick than he thought.

Hermione had, somehow, mellowed after her daunting confession. She had spent most of her days lying in bed, reading, or outside the BMCU watching their baby. Olivia Kennedy, Hermione's Psychiatry Healer, told him that his wife was making progress, acknowledging her loss instead of choosing to ignore it. But Ron couldn't quite perceive said progress. Hermione's quietness make him nervous.

He had only believed Healer Kennedy when, eleven days after the accident, Hermione quietly asked him if she could hold their daughter that day, when they were visiting her at the Babies Magical Care Unit. And while she cradled Bean close to her heart, she quietly told him she was ready to let her mother go. That she wanted to go to the hospital where her mother was admitted, to let her rest in peace.

They disconnected the Muggle paraphernalia (or life-support machines, as Harry told him) a couple of days later. Ron held Hermione during the whole thing, and they bid their goodbyes, watching Linda Granger's serene departure.

Ron knew then for sure that they were rising above this.

* * *

The days preceding the funeral were much harder than he had expected. Caskets to choose from, flowers to decide. Hermione moved around, dazed, while they tried to decide on the arrangements. During the burial, she barely responded to the condolences or the hugs they received from the mourners. She just stared straight ahead at the horizon, as if she could see something nobody else could.

She only cried when they were the only ones left at the graveyard. The sunset of this September evening was especially breathtaking. Ron's heart shattered into pieces when he took one look at his wife's face. The blankness was long gone, replace with such a shocking blazing look. He hadn't anticipated this fierceness … He didn't know what to make of it.

But Hermione always managed to surprise him.

"It happened, you know," she told him, staring defiantly into his eyes, as if daring him to doubt her. "On the night before I agreed to… disconnect her. I had a dream about my mother and we said our goodbyes, like I said we would."

"I can't quite remember it, only parts of it," she continued. "But what I do remember… It felt so vivid, Ron." Her face softened.

"Do you want me to tell you my dream?"

When he slowly nodded, the potency of her smile made his insides turn into goo. Ron fell in love with her all over again, completely smitten by this new Hermione, the one that had lost so much and yet carried herself with a delicate grace while her loss was written all over her face.

He had fallen in love with her some countless times, in such many different ways that he thought it was impossible to do it again, to love her even more than he already did. Nevertheless, there she was, proving him wrong again.

"In this dream, I was back at my old house," she said, "and my mum was there." Tangy tears rolled down his face but he didn't care. "And she was so _happy_, Ron, because she could be with my father again! But she told me she was mad at me." Hermione was crying now too, her tears falling hot upon his shirt. "She was mad at me for acting the way I had been since the accident. For blaming myself, for holding you and Bean at arm's length."

"She told me I couldn't stop living because she had died. She told me I had a lot to be thankful for, a lot to look forward to. That I was lucky, and should be happy for her, for if she knew someone that could understand the pain of losing the love of your life and the joy of getting him back, this person would be me." He reached for her. "For you're the love of my life. Because when you left that time, my life continued, but there was a dull ache, a void in my heart where you used to be. And then you came back. Not only this one time, but at Christmas too. We found each other again that night. I couldn't be more grateful to know you haven't give up on us even when I was giving you every reason to."

He shook his head at this. She wasn't the only one to blame for the distance between them for those six long months. It had been his fault too. But Hermione silenced him with a pleading look. She had to tell him this, and he had to let her.

"So why should I give up on life?" They were both sobbing now, so intertwined that it was nearly impossible to distinguish one from the other. The sun was completely gone, and they were alone in front of the graves of her parents while she whispered in his ear her beautiful dream. "Then she hugged me. As she did when I was a child. She told me it was time to get on with my life and start being a wife again. That it was my time to become a mother. That I had a family to love, a daughter to raise. That I had you and Bean, and so much to look forward to."

"When she held me, I could smell her scent. A scent I could only smell on one person other than my mother." Hermione's voice was quivering now. "A scent I only smelled on our own daughter, Ron." Their bodies, pressed as one, shook with their abundant tears. "The smells of roses."

"You smell like roses too." This was the first words he had uttered after the end of the service. It was a lifetime ago. _Everything_ felt like a lifetime ago.

"I know. She told me that too," Hermione sobbed, her head burrowed into Ron's chest, barely reaching his shoulder. "Right before the… accident."

They cried a little bit more, together. Sometime later, Hermione quietly told him she was a bit uncomfortable standing there. Ron remembered she was still recovering from the c-section and she should've been resting. Berating himself, he performed a side-along Apparition to the Maternity Ward. He rushed to her room, but Hermione insisted on seeing Bean before going to bed.

They stood there, outside the Babies Magical Care Unit, watching the little miracle they had managed to create together. She was breathing evenly, her remarkable eyes closed, her fists clenched, her forehead frowning in concentration while she slept.

Bean looked as peaceful and mellow as a newborn could've been, and Ron could only think of bringing her to their home as soon as possible.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Hermione asked, a hint of awe in her voice.

"She's perfect." Ron smiled. "The Healers told me that once she's over six pounds, we can take her home with us."

"Pretty soon, then." Hermione beamed back at him. "Just a couple of days, if it's up to me."

Ron nodded. "I can't wait to get to know her."

They stood there for a while, watching their daughter sleep from afar, holding hands. This was the most peaceful Ron had felt in over three weeks.

"I was thinking…" he said deliberately slowly. He didn't want to risk the progress Hermione seemed to have made in the last days. "That Viviane makes a prettier middle name." This was it. He had to say it, otherwise he wouldn't have the courage to do it later. "And I still haven't gotten around to calling her anything but Bean so far. Now that I see her, I can't help but feel that Viviane isn't quite her true name. What do you think?"

He breathed easier when he realized Hermione was considering. A spark of hope was lit, making Ron think that maybe, _just maybe_, Hermione finally understood the survival of their daughter as the silver-lining of this tragedy.

"I suppose you're right." Hermione told him, her brow furrowed. "What kind of name do you suggest for her, then?"

"Well, I reckon you would want to honour your mother…" His heart leapt in his chest, cautious. _Moment of truth, Weasley. _"So… Rose. I think it would be a nice tribute to Linda's memory."

"Rose?" She stared at him questioningly. "Why?"

"Well, you sort of smell like roses. You told me your mother thought the same thing as me." Ron could feel his ears turning red with apprehension. He didn't want to upset Hermione further. "She was the one that bought you those Muggle bath salts when you were little, wasn't she?" Embarrassed, he continued. "And you told me in the graveyard that your mother smelled like roses too."

"So does Bean. Then I guess it would only be fitting to name her Rose." Ron looked at Hermione, trying to gauge her reaction. Had he gone too far? But he was taken aback by her shell-shocked expression. "You hate it, don't you?"

"_No!_ I think it's kind of perfect, Ron."

She was looking at him with so much adoration and love in her eyes that he just had to kiss her. When they surfaced for air, Hermione was flushed and crying.

"Rose Viviane Weasley." She beamed through her tears. "Our little girl blue."

"She also has some red in her," Ron added, ruffling his ginger hair. "And brown. After all, we're her parents, aren't we?"

"And pink. She's a pink baby."

"So many colors in a child." Ron held Hermione against his body, resting his chin on the top of her curly hair. "Do you think she can handle it?"

"She's _our_ daughter," Hermione proudly informed him, as if this was a new piece of information. Ron couldn't help but chuckle at her indignation. "And she's already a survivor." She linked their hands. Little comforting touches were what kept them going. "So if she turns out to have your temper- "

"And your stubbornness…" he interrupted her, but she continued nevertheless.

"There's nothing that life can toss on her path that she won't be able to take."

* * *

**A.N.: **Bear with me, folks. I would like to thank my favorite girls, **Tutsie (Albe-Chan),** **Lisa** and **Linda**. _Tutsie_, you're the one responsible to get me writing. It's your fault now that I can't seem to stop. Thanks for the encouragement, praise and the always-being-there-for-me part. Let's rock other people's socks, hon! _Lisa_, I'm so happy to have found such a solicitous soul to bear with my rants and constant re-writes. _Linda_, you've been unbelievable. Always accessible, helpful, insightful. Such a inspiration as a fellow writer and human being. I'll never forget the kindness you've shown me when I first showed up with this, very raw and immature. Bless you girls, for everything you have done for me. I can't believe it has been 9 months I've been carrying this story and its characters around with me. I hope I've managed to transform at least a tenth of the utter joy, annoyance and severe lack of sleep I've felt during those months into something worth reading, something that brought tears, laughter and hope into your lives.A thank you also goes to **Allii**, for helping me with medical info.

**The biggest thank you goes to you, my reviewers, **for staying with me through the sometimes difficult, but gratifying course of The Blues! I'm incredibly grateful for the love and reception this story received, and I cherish every single one of the reviews I've gotten. You guys were awesome with your nagging, suggestions, and yelling at me for making Ron and Hermione suffer for the benefit of my inner-Bellatrix. All of you made a difference in my life and in this story. There's still the epilogue to come. Hope it provides you with the same feeling of closure and pleasure I've felt while writing.

_**Love always, Sophia**_


	7. Love Is Blue Epilogue

**Love Is Blue  
**Epilogue

_**"I thought of you and where you'd gone…  
And the world spins madly on."  
**_World Spins Madly On – The Weepies

_**"All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope." **_**  
**Alexandre Dumas_  
_

_**A.N: **_The end is not near, it's here! Yes, duckies, this is the last and final chapter of The Blues Are Still Blue. It's been a blast. Thank you for all the support.

For the soundtrack of this chapter, the same as usual, check my LJ. But there's only two songs I found fitting for here: "Lie In The Sound" – Trespassers William and "Life Is A Song" – Patrick Park. Also, there are references in this chapter to Undercloakkept's story called "Hearing", Evanesco75's amazing "Never Enough" and to Artemisia Lufkin, the first Witch to become Minister of Magic. Let me know what you guys think of this last chapter!

_And here goes nothing…_

* * *

**  
**  
Pink: negative. Blue: positive.

The next stage of Hermione's life was to be decided over colours displayed on a plastic stick. Ironically, she had once found herself depending on stripes. Maybe someday the course of another woman's life would be altered because of patterns. Tartan or chintz? Pregnant or not?

Sniffing, she waited. There wasn't much she could do except that. Hermione was, at this point in her life, practically a pro when it came to taking Muggle pregnancy tests in order to learn her tummy status.

And this one was lucky number 51.

With the first one of these that she had bought, Hermione remembered being shaken with nerves, anxiety, and a little bit of sadness at the sight of the positive result. Back then, she hadn't wanted a child. The deed, however, had already been done, and she had embraced it, falling in love with the idea of having a baby with her Ron. But fate, as unexpectedly as it had bestowed upon her that gift, had taken it away.

She had been left with nothing but an empty womb and a burning ache.

The next fifteen tests had been the hardest. Every negative result had taken her by surprise, until she was shivering with cold disappointment and desperation. And as the numbers increased, so had her frustration. Hermione hadn't been able to understand what she had done wrong. Where it had gone wrong. She had wanted a baby more than she wanted to be a mother, to be a wife, to be a woman. And because of this, she had nearly lost herself and her marriage in the process. They had recovered, though. They always did.

The subsequent seventeen tests had been even more of a surprise than the first one she had taken. With every positive result, with every peed-on miraculous confirmation of the randomness that was life, Hermione had grown more frantic and astonished. When she hadn't dared to hope anymore, when she and Ron thought all hope was lost, ithadhappened. She had gotten pregnant again.

And that time, she had gotten to experience the whole arduous process. Everything had been fantastic, as it was supposed to be (aside from the dreadful bed rest she had had to endure for her Rosie's sake) until the accident that had changed their lives.

Seven people had lost their lives that day, and one of them had been Linda Granger. For a while, Hermione had thought she would never recover from this loss. But she did; she had moved on and rebuilt her life, as her parents would've wanted. No one could come out of the loss of a parent unscathed, but she had Ron to lean on, and then Rose, too.

They somehow managed to make it better, managed to _heal _her. They'd managed to make her feel joy again. Every time Hermione saw her husband cuddling their baby girl, cooing to her while she peacefully slept, her heart had mended a little. Whenever Ron had tripped over Crookshanks and muttered a hushed 'Bloody cat!', he had patched her heart more just by being himself.

After so many losses, they'd kept on loving, kept on living, kept on laughing.

_"Just like my mum wanted me to do," _she thought, her heart skipping a beat.

Then, when Rosie grew into a rambunctious two year-old toddler with a toothy grin and began sporting her first signs of magic, they had decided to try for another baby.

_"Another girl, one just like you, with brown eyes and brown hair," _Ron had told her earnestly.

They already had a red-haired girl with quite a temper and eyes a shade of blue Hermione had only ever seen on one other person.

_"Mum." _It still hurt, but the pain wasn't as raw and crippling as it had been eleven years ago. _"My mum and her hauntingly beautiful eyes." _Whenever Rosie, due to her adventurous nature, had created a mess out of their living-room and had given Hermione an innocent look that Harry had laughingly told them "would put Jamie's puppy eyed stare to shame," Hermione had always found herself giving in and showering her daughter with kisses, making the misbehaving girl giggle in delight.

_"Every bloody time," _Ron used to teased her. _"I never thought I would be the one to discipline our child. If we have another one with those eyes, can you believe the chaos they could create together? I'll take the next one with brown eyes, thank you very much."_

So, Hermione had stopped taking the birth control potion and had let nature run its course. Three months later had found her using a spell to produce urine enough for seventeen pregnancy tests. Ron told her that she was completely mental, but Hermione had explained that it wouldn't _feel right _otherwise. If it turned out to be lucky enough the first time they had done it this way, why not do it again for the second time?

The truth was that she hadn't really wanted to tempt fate, not that she actually believed in it, mind you. Hermione always tried to act on logic and facts, but when it came to raising a family, she had a lot of proof that logic was overrated.

And as it turned out, she had been right. Seventeen sticks later were, for Ron "the most revolting, unusual exams" she had ever taken, but for Hermione, they were the most lovely and proudest seventeen sticks of her life so far, the ones that proved that she and Ron had created yet another life together, in spite of all the difficulties they had overcome in all the years they'd been together and in love.

Including those sticks, the grand total was fifty Muggle pregnancy tests that she had taken and treasured up until now. When Hermione had told Ron that she had the evidence that another Weasley was on its way lying on their bathroom floor, he had laughed in the most delicious manner and proceeded to thoroughly snog her.

_"That's an awful lot of pee, luv," _he had said, as he kissed her _everywhere _with that talented mouth of his, tracing patterns that had lit her skin on fire.

She was the luckiest witch alive, and she knew it.

After Hugo arrived, with his lively boyishness and fascination with everything Muggle (making him Arthur's willing comrade in hiding, fixing and tampering with Muggle devices in his Granddad's shed, away from Molly's nagging), Hermione and Ron knew they were quite content with their small but boisterous brood of two. Their dream of a big, close-knit family had faded away with the exhausting demands of their careers and home lives.

But now, Hermione was leaning against the bathroom sink with a heart beating as fast as if she had just run a marathon across the entire country.

_"Well, that's one way of looking at it."_

The culprit of her wretched nerves lay innocently enough on her sink, as if it had nothing to do with the edginess that coursed through her body, nothing to do with the tears that were threatening to fall from her eyes. Hermione was nearly falling apart, and the worst part of it was that her still surprised and disbelieving self wasn't being comforted by her own gobsmacked husband.

This was the most perplexing, disconcerting and amazing situation she had found herself in the last eight years. This was the type of situation one _couldn't _expect to find themselves in on the verge of turning thirty-eight years old.

Maybe if you were an eighteen year old girl, just fresh out of Hogwarts. Or maybe a more experienced woman, in their mid-twenties or early thirties. But when you're an almost forty year-old witch with a daughter about to embark on her first year at Hogwarts, it's downright embarrassing.

She didn't needanother child. They certainly hadn't planned on having another one after Hugo, particularly at their advanced age! It wasn't as if she was ancient, but Hermione felt too old to face another round of sleepless nights, nappy changes and hormonal madness.

She had already deemed herself as too old, too damaged and too scarred of a woman to do this again. Hermione had already dealt with a miscarriage, an emergency c-section and a traumatizing experience with child birth – more than enough to drive anyone out of having children for a long time, and some more.

After Hugo's birth, which had gone far less smoothly than Rose's (and that was saying something, considering the circumstances in which her daughter was born), her ObGyn Wizard told her that another pregnancy, for her, was highly unlikely and undesirable.

This hadn't bothered her as much as it would've before. She had been completely enamoured with her audacious girl and her endearing baby boy, and they were as much of a handful as they came. Any remaining desire for having another child was quickly discarded after seeing Hannah and Neville trying to handle their five kids, or watching Harry and Ginny struggle with their trio.

No, Hermione and Ron had agreed that two children was definitely the best option to preserve one's sanity, and they valued theirs immensely.

_"After all, it is what's keeping you from turning into Luna," _Ron had informed her, earning a perfectly aimed whack on the back of the head accompanied by Rosie's demand of wanting to see her Aunt Luna to play with the twins and Hugo's delighted cry of _"Do it again, Mummy!"_

What a handful they were, those two adored children.

Rose and Hugo bickered as fiercely as Hermione and Ron did, were as sneaky as Ginny had been when she was little, and they were as clever, imaginative and prone to mischievous behaviour as Fred and George had been. Together, her children were an unstoppable force of nature, creators of chaos, and they tried (sometimes with success, Hermione was ashamed to admit) to evade their parents' wrath and punishments.

The worst of it was when Rose and Hugo were joined by Freddie, Jamie, Roxanne and Louis; they could be classified as a menace to society, Wizarding and Muggle. The usually soothing effects that the presence of Al, Lucy and Lily's calm personalities had upon their children did little to control Hugo and Rosie when the other troublemakers were around: Freddie with his ingenious schemes, Jamie and his brazen attitude, Roxanne's cunningness and Louis' impressive ability to charm anyone into doing his bidding.

And when Rox and Rosie were inseparable and Hugo worshipped the ground his cousins stepped on, little could be done to separate the Cheeky Six, as Molly affectionately called them when they were together.

So, Ron and Hermione's lives were anything but dull. Apart from their children, they still had exceptionally demanding jobs to contend with, jobs that worked them to their very core, but that they treasured nonetheless. Hermione constantly worked alongside other departments of the Ministry and travelled overseas to seal agreements between Wizarding nations. Her job was challenging, but she loved everything about it. Hermione felt as if she had helped make a difference in the values of Wizarding society.

Ron, after ten years working as an Auror with Harry as his partner, invested his innate talent into training the newcomers of the Department, and was now the head of the recruitment team. Legendary for his unorthodox methods of training, respected amongst his peers and admired by his recruits, Ron had secured a well-deserved reputation as being another Moody in the making with the exception of still maintaining his original body parts and being far less paranoid, but just as competent and important to the division.

Hermione couldn't be more proud of the man he had become, the man she always knew he could be even when he wasn't quite sure himself.

Ron always thought she was joking when she said she had complete and utter faith in him. And even though sometimes she told him that just to take the piss out of him, she positively meant it. He was her _hero__**. **_He was the love of her life.

_"I wager you say that to all your husbands," _he had joked when he pillow-talked this confession out of her a certain night.

_"Only to the Wizard ones," _she'd played along, _"with bright red-hair and freckles."_

_"So just the rest of my brothers, then." _Ron had smirked. _"With the exception of Charlie, of course. It would be a rather tricky long-distance affair to carry on."_

_"Or so you would like to think,"_ she'd added, her eyes twinkling with amusement, fighting the urge to laugh at her husband's antics, _"but I have my ways."_

_"I bet you do," _he had replied,and silenced her with an unnerving efficiency provided by some many years of marriage and companionship.

They still loved each with a passion that the years couldn't dampen. Hermione would smile whenever she recalled the time Rose had a Ministry hearing for the recurring use of underage magic when she was nine years old. Her daughter had learned silencing spells at the ripe age of seven, by herself, practicing with Hermione's easily discarded wand when she and Ron were too wrapped up in each other to remember their wands, and she had used the spell on them. As the years passed, their lovemaking grew more daring, blithe and satisfying, both of them completely in tune with each other's bodies, as well as their own.

And if her math wasn't off, the mortifying situation that Hermione was currently experiencing was the result of all the careless fun they had had four weeks ago.

She blamed Ginny Potter for this, for on that memorable afternoon, her sister-in-law had volunteered herself and her husband to take their children to the beach to give Hermione and Ron some quality time by themselves at the summer house the Potters and the Weasleys had bought together in Cornwall.

While they had basked in the glorious sunlight and blessed quietness, a summer storm had suddenly made an appearance. Ron had given her a sheepish, lopsided grin that crumbled any possibility of resistance and protest, not that Hermione was offering any. She had been just as eager as he was. Sex in the rain was _their _thing.

And that was most definitely the reason for her current predicament.

She could hear the deep masculine voice that belonged to her husband across the hall in Hugo's bedroom, telling the nine year old the story of Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump. Rosie's sluggish voice asked for a different story, and Hermione found herself growing melancholy at the upcoming loss of this treasured routine. Her daughter would be heading for school in just a few days, and Hugo would soon follow her. Then only Ron and Hermione would remain, all alone in their old house, overcrowded with books.

A silent house. A childless house.

A month earlier, Hermione would have been thanking the skies for this, looking forward to being able to lie around on Sundays, wearing nothing but her knickers and an overgrown Chudley Canons shirt that had been Ron's when he was a teenager.

Somehow, Hermione felt different about this today. What a couple of weeks ago seemed like a foolish and life-risking possibility, today felt like a vital yearn, like a sweet promise of love and new beginnings. She had come from being satisfied with her experiences with motherhood to desiring a baby that might not even be _real_, that might not even be there. But she wanted that confirmation of her love for Ron, of that beautiful, crazy afternoon they had in Cornwall.

And that was because up until then, Hermione hadn't been confronted with the harsh, saddening possibilities of what could've been happening to her. She had been having headaches, and had been constantly tired. Her breasts were tender, and she felt like a human roller coaster of emotions. And after missing her monthly cycle, Hermione had been sure two things could've been happening to her: she was either looking at a highly unlikely possibility of a pregnancy or at the symptoms of a very,_ very _early menopause, just like her mother had experienced. She couldn't decide which possibility was scarier.

Hermione had tried not to dwell on it, tried to ignore the symptoms for two whole weeks, until her missed period had warned her that regardless of all her wishful thinking, _this _wasn't going away, and she had to deal with it.

The first step had been taken; she had acknowledged the problem. Then, she'd had to decide how to deal with it. Should she read more to try to find out what was happening to her body by herself, or consult a Healer right away?

Then, last night, Hermione had remembered. She'd remembered the ones she loved dearly, the ones whose presence she missed every day, the ones whose imprints she could see on herself, on her children. In Rose's eyes. In her love for poetry, and the distinct scent she possessed. In the colour of Hugo's shaggy hair, a deep chestnut-brown similar to her father's. In his slightly big front teeth, hazel eyes and his penchant for music.

She had remembered her mother telling her about the joy of seeing those sticks turn positive. She had remembered her own joy when they had.

Would it be so bad to have another baby, to rediscover things she had once thought lost in the ones she loved and that had passed away? Would it be so awful to have another testament of the love she and Ron shared? Another baby on the way, ready to fill their house with more love, laughter and life?

_"No,_" Hermione realized. It would be the most beautiful thing.

So she had dared to dream about becoming a mother again, at the unlikely age of thirty-eight. She began to hope and dream again. It was possible; stranger things have happened. Luna had proved the existence of Nargles, hadn't she?

And the other idea, the one that her rational mind kept reminding her was a possibility, suddenly seemed downright abominable. Too unkind to be true.

So, the previous night, Hermione had decided that she had dwelled and considered the possibilities long enough. She had waited and hoped, but now it was time to discover the truth. She was a woman of action, after all. All Hermione wanted to know was if she had hoped, longed and waited in vain.

Now she simply _had _to know.

Hermione had often proved she was a fearless woman, even though she didn't exactly feel that way at the moment. But this was the moment of truth, and stalling it, avoiding it, wouldn't make it any less devastating if she were wrong and the test turned pink instead of blue. It wouldn't make it any less surprising if she were right.

Would her dreams come true? Would she get the chance of carrying another child again? Would she get to have a new baby to claim as hers and Ron's?

And if she was wrong, would she fall apart like she did all those times she had thought she might be pregnant, but wasn't? Was Hermione setting herself up for more disappointment, bitterness and heartache?

No. Come what may, she knew things were drastically different this time.

She had Ron.

She had Rose.

She had Hugo.

She had thrice as much as love, support and affection as she had had before.

And that was enough to make any woman the luckiest woman alive.

Hermione Granger-Weasley was no coward. Standing in front of the sink, clutching that urine-smelling ray of hope in her hands, telling herself that shecould do this_; _she was a Gryffindor after all. Listening to her children's innocent voices bidding their father goodnight, Hermione prepared herself for what was about to come. Whatever it may be. Pink or blue. Blue or pink.

_"I have to find out."_

Whether the test turned the colour she wanted it to turn or not, Hermione knew she could handle whatever life tossed in her direction. She was her parents' daughter, she was Ronald Weasley's wife, she was Rose and Hugo's mother.

Most importantly, she was her own person, Hermione Granger-Weasley, and she was sure that she was as strong as her parents willed her to be, that she could bend and not break.

So she looked.

And there it was.

A blue stick, holding all of her hopes and dreams with it.

Adrenaline ran through her body, and Hermione didn't feel like the luckiest woman alive anymore. She felt like she was more than that, that she also was the most blessed, most _fortunate_ woman to ever have walked on the planet.

Ron knocked on the bathroom door.

"Ready to come out, love? The kids are asking for you."

She opened the door, controlling the huge smile of triumph that snuck its way onto her lips. Hermione looked into the depths of her husband's eyes, his blues darker than the one she held hidden within her hands.

She couldn't love that colour more than she already did.

"So?" He was peering at her with apprehension written all over his face at the sight of her inscrutable expression. "Which colour did the sodding thing turn?"

"I hope you're proud of yourself for doing this, Ronald Weasley." Hermione wanted to make him as happy and surprised as she was with the results of their little Cornwall escapade. "Because now you'll have to tell your mother that her randy git of a son managed to turn his wife's pregnancy stick blue again."

And thus the third Great Massacre of Names, also known as the epic and endless discussion of the virtues of Priscilla versus Artemisia, began.

* * *

**A.N: And that's the end of it, loves. I hope you've enjoyed as much as I did. Last chance to review and let me know what you thought! ;)**


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